ENTERTAINMENT: Stephanie Linus blasts Nigerian leaders

Award winning Nollywood actress cum movie producer, Stephanie Linus over the years has climbed up the ladder is no doubt at the peak of her career at the moment, as her movie Dry is receiving many awards.

Having winning several awards at the Africa Magic Viewer Choice Awards (AMVCA) and also at the just concluded Africa Movie Academy Awards, Stephanie Linus in an interview with NAIJ.COM, revealed how she and her husband have trained over a thousand students and voiced out her opinion about piracy in Nigeria.

What plans do you have in stock to train worthy aspiring actor and directors?

You know we have been doing that. My husband is the CEO of Delyork International and over the years he has been fine and doing great. He partnered with the New York film academy and brought in a lot of lectures and we have trained over a thousand students and we see all our students doing well, even with the one month training they had, they have been able to shoot their own movies, get jobs and so many other things, so we are really happy about that and hopefully it is something we want to continue to do because we need a lot of talent, people to enhance their talent and redefine them. But at least we have been able to do different things In Nigeria so they should stop ‘yabbing’ Nigerians.

If your biography is to be commissioned, what will the title be and why?

(Laughs) The thing has not finished nah, we have just started Abeg. Okay what will the title be? (laughs) maybe when I get there I can title it, I can title it “I have seen” but right now I can think of anything, I am on the sort.

Moving down to the industry, piracy is a big problem, how has it affected you?

It is ridiculous you know that is one of the speech that I actually forgot to have say, on my way home I realized that there is one more thing I needed to say (laughs)  and I was like how did I forget this. It still balls down that we live in a country where (sighs) I don’t know what is wrong with our leaders, you know sometimes you see an industry or a sector that is employing millions of people, a sector that is striving very well, a sector that is the only export that you have, forget this oil that they are talking about it is the only authentic export that you have and an export that has been able to grow on its own, as its own massive fellowship and has this huge potential for you to tell your story, for you to not allow other people tell your stories for. It can be used as a propaganda tool so many things you can do with this platform and you are not doing anything to protect the rights of this people, so that there will be sustainability. It is really sad because regardless of people saying you have this guilt coiling in, we just need to strengthen the laws because if you don’t fix piracy, distribution can’t stand. Make it a financial crime, criminalize this people, if we have to go back and revisit the law. If the law says if someone pirates your film you are going to pay this amount of money, let’s fit the law in and tighten it and let people understand that you can’t be doing things with people’s creativity.

You have to figure out a way to encourage this people, it saddens me when we have leaders who don’t understand what they have in their place, I can go into a country confidently that is why I said most of us will probably move out and if I move into a country. Different African countries are calling us to come in and help our people their economy, for example we were able to move into Ghana and you saw what happened there, the industry strung up. So you have this huge potential of millions of young people who want to be in this industry and you are not doing anything about it. It is like carrying a cup of water and pouring it into the ocean, if we don’t lock up the tap where there i