 Hello, welcome to this edition of Timeless Conversations. My guest today is a brother, a friend and a mentor. Mentor not because of any other thing, but the fact that he does whatever he does well and I like to learn from people who do stuff well. He is none other than Richard Moffet D'Amejo, RMD for short. Good to see you. Thank you for having me. I believe that you know, but I think you will tell me what you do know truly. That if we were to write the story of contemporary theatre, contemporary production, contemporary film in Nigeria today, you will have to feature prominently. You know. Well, you know, they say, for us, we just do the work. And the historians like you, the gatekeepers like you will be the ones that will etch it. You know, I would say that in that profession, he will never retire. But truly, what was the foundation? What was the fascination that got you into it? I am a child of television. I am a complete child of television, child of films and everything. I mean, I was one of those who run after mobile cinemas. In those days to find out where they are setting up. So we can get different seats. You will sit on the ground and wait for the commentator. You know, he was silent. Yes, he was silent. But they will run the commentaries. And when television, when you discover that there is a man who owns a television set, maybe like a few miles away, and they start at, the man opens his window probably at 7 p.m. We start the trek from 116 p.m. to get to the good spot on the window before my father bought his own television. So I knew from an early stage that I would love to be one of those people inside the box. Talking, you know, so that people can also watch. Yeah. And when it was time for university, theatre was the obvious choice. Yes. My illicit mother, who didn't know what theatre was, had to discern from her cousin, who we call Oculondon, who was supposed to be dropping me in the university the next day, who was very upset with me that I was going to school to play. That's your uncle. My uncle. He was like, this boy is just going to play. I don't know why you let him go to university to go out and play. My mom started crying, and suddenly her tears usually would break me. And I cried and I said, look, it's okay. I'm not going to play. It's serious. But you will see me on television. That's the only thing I can let you understand. And she was like, she looked at my uncle and said, is it true? Is he going to be on television? Well, yeah, if he does well. As God will have it in my second year at the university, I think it was Ifai Ayafulu or something like that, somebody that came to watch a stage play in Unibem, saw me on stage and asked my lecturer to let me come for an audition at NTA Benin. I went for the audition and I got the part. It was a lead role. It was a character called a maker. And it was about you, suitcase system. This is the system. Yes. TV script was written by Bob E.G. King. Bob E.G. King. Yes. Echoes of wrath. Yes. On the wrath of the gods. The wrath of the gods. And that was my claim to fame. So we did the TV play. It was the entry for the television service. And we won the national competition. I didn't know what that had done for my image. But I can tell you that when I went home after that semester, after the play had been shown, apparently it had been repeated a few times. So people had known that it was me that was in that thing. And my mother, of course, had already become popular. So when I got to the market and they cited me, it was me. Because I didn't know what had happened. But they started shouting, they carried me to the dust. Around the market. Dust around the market and dropped me in my mother's shop. By which time all her friends had taken choice positions to welcome me back home. And it was another woman that, I knew that I had made the right choice. Because that feeling, it stays with you. Yes it does. It stays with you. And this was just me in school. I mean, imagine if I now went on to become something else nationally. Again, when I came to Lagos after youth service, again it was stage play. I was on stage. Danlady Baku had come to the theatre and saw me. And he had invited me to come to NTE for an audition. Then it was SPACS. Special Protection Anti-Crime Squares. But we had a little thing. I'm very prompt. If I'm going to be late, I will call and I say I'm going to be late. In fact, sometimes people say I get ridiculous because I can call and say I'll be five minutes late. So our pact kept Chris crossing. When he says be there too, I will be there before too, but he might not be there. Anyway, long story short, the first day that he was supposed to audition me, he didn't see me because I had gone. By the time he came, I had gotten angry and gone. And the next time he saw me, he was like, you did show up. I told him to come and do an audition. I said, I showed up, you did show up. So we talked about it and he laughed. He sort of liked me. I said, you know what? I was going to give you a big pass before. Just one or two episodes, but I'm going to make you one of the detectives. And that was how I became a major cast in that series. That's like how they started calling your mom and make up. Yes. So I became nationally recognized. And of course, I became friends with Thaddeo Ogedo. Ogedo went on to do hostages. Hostages. Yes, hostages. And of course, some of my most important works were done with him. I did diamond ring. Diamond ring was something else. And then a certain young lady came into the scene. Her name was Amaka Ibe. God bless her so. Amaka cast me in Checkmate. Checkmate was already in episode 10 when I joined. And so I needed to make an impression. I needed to join quickly. I made an impression. And I remember when I was building my character, I started doing this. I'll check the calorie. And then I dropped my voice to an octave. Like a lower. And so when I appeared on the set the first day, I didn't spare anybody. I was ready. Yes. And again, I was seen. I think I had lost him. Balaji Daoju. Oh. Yeah, I think so. I think we lost him as well. So Amaka has gone down. Balaji. I remember I seen that made me an instant hero on the set. I remember that I was with Ego Boyu. Yes. You who was unharmed up. Yes. And I remember I think it was, I went to our office. And as I was talking to her, I did like this. I tapped my leg and I put my legs on her table. Yes. You know? And I could see my shot work. And then the director was like, you know, So it became a thing for me, you know, when I get to the office I tap my leg and I put it on her table. Just showed disregard of something, you know? So from early on I came in and enjoyed myself. I enjoy everything I do. Everything that has to do with this business, you know, or anything that is given to me as an assignment, I would do it to the best of my ability as if my entire life depends on it. And that has been my motivation for everything that I do. Little did I know that 62 years later, it will become like the hallmark of, you know, my success. It's actually the hallmark of your definition. You know, so I look back now and I say, thank God for loving my work. I'm not minding what anybody else will say around me. Yes. Of course, you are given a name if you work too hard. If you work too hard. I used to be the... I used to be the work guy in the studio. Who does he think he is? Why do you have to always do it? You can just manage it. But then, you know, it's strange, it's funny. It's against the drift. For someone like you who, as an only child, one would expect to have been spoilt silly by all. My mother, God bless her soul, she would wait for somebody like you to come visit me when all my friends come. Then she would start shouting. She would start screaming and crying. And I would be begging like, calm down, my friends. I would say, no. Let them know how you treat me. Her common phrases, when I say it in PG in the sweeter, if person born one picking, then they die put. I'm supposed to talk to her with my eyes. If I look at you, you're supposed to know what I'm saying. No sense. I would start begging her to calm down. My mom would raise me, would lift me over my ear. So she said to me, this one child that I have, you will be like 20. You will cook, you will clean, you will be a girl, you will be a boy. You will do everything that a child is supposed to do. So from age 10, in fact from age 8, I was cooking. Till date, it's one of my superpowers. So when I was dating her sister, she couldn't cope. She had to run to her auntie to learn to live. She would eat in my house, and I was like, what if a girlfriend did this one? This is not my girlfriend. I did. So really, for me I think that background fired you up too. Oh yeah. Just to pursue excellence. Oh yes. I don't know how anybody that doesn't have a strong parental guidance can cope. Because there's so much destruction out there. For us, it's not even as bad growing up, but today, from games, the phone alone, the destruction of the phone alone is too strong. I don't know about you, but when we were young, in my teens, what we did was to look for those people who sell books on the street. You would buy hardly cheese on the stack. And then you start to read. There was usually a competition. Of course. When it was now the time of Leonorius, you know, the Bond Identity, you would start to read and the bigger the novels, the better. And then if it was comics, you read so much. I mean, we would fight about books. You would say, how many have you read? So now, all of that is gone. All of that is gone. I don't know. They're not even reading books on Amazon or e-books. No. I still remember earlier when my wife would say, why do you just load your suitcase with books? I have a thing for hard covers. I just buy hard covers. I love hard covers. I love to turn the page. So, you know, all of that gives you the discipline to be able to... So today, one of the biggest things that people our age deal with is to be able to adapt to be able to match the energy of these young people. Unfortunately, some of us didn't be able to make that switch. That's what I wanted to ask you. How were you able to make the switch? And don't throw the question back at me. Right? How were you able to make that switch? Because there you were very strong on theatre, stage, television, and then movies came in. Then technology came in. I had children early. So I had also the good fortune of being a Sunday school teacher. I was teaching things. When I was handling these teenagers, I could see the rate at which things were changing. I used an illustration of my children to sort of gauge how technology was switching. And those things were the signposts for me to start to change with them. Yeah. When they just went abroad, when I go to America, the cops stay with me in my hotel room. And they fight, the two of them. They fight over remote control. Daddy! He doesn't want me to watch this. After a while I discovered that when they come to my room, they just want to jump in the bed and pull the duvet and hold their phones underneath the duvet. And my television is there, they don't touch it. You had your piece? And I was looking at this time to go to bed, turn off your phones but if we turn on the phone, the minute I go to my own room, they are back on. I saw that switch and I knew that one had to keep up and keeping up meant understanding what was going on. Understanding that television was gradually migrating from the wall to the palm. And it also meant that we needed to work smacking. And that is what you find even among the young people. Why do we have YouTube millennials today? And people are still saying they are looking for who to help them. Yes. There are boys who started streaming from their phones. There's a guy called Ithom who does all these things with his phone. I did one of my birthday things with him. He records with his phone. He edits everything with his phone. And today he is a brand influencer, all kinds of things. And so when young people come to me sometimes I say to them that if you are not lazy you will understand that you do not really need anything that everything is here now. You need to make the switch. Find out what other young people are doing to ensure that they can beat the odds. Because now to be an entrepreneur means owning your own thing. Being able to do it yourself. That's what being an entrepreneur is. So this is the age of entrepreneurs. We have seen the dot-com billionaires and all of that. Now you can sit in your room and use the tools that are available and go viral in one second. Look at what happened to us when we were under lockdown. The Nigerian economic space was transformed by these young people who were solution based providers. They were looking for solutions. If you needed to move money they were looking for solutions. What was the biggest thing we had? PayPal. These boys made billions. And today look there's flutter wave. There's big events. There are all kinds of things. These kids are redefining the entire space economically, socially and everything. Even to how they organize resistance and everything. Twitter is a tool. We saw the Arab Spring and everything and today in Nigeria we have our own kind of spring. We saw all that play out during the elections. So for me I'm a trend watcher and I like to be able to be able to at least navigate it. I might not be an expert in it. We have AI now. How can you see back and not be able to deploy AI to help yourself? So we all need to keep watching these trends and see how we can switch and not become dinosaurs overnight. That dinosaur effect that I actually wanted to leap onto, that switch that you made something must have informed you in your career. It's the zero to survive and be on the very top of the food chain. Because the minute you drop off to climb back up there is very difficult. If possible. It is so important that you must keep up and keeping up means researching, reading asking questions and being able to unlearn. Because you can't sit in one place and say oh I've done this for 40 years. The truth is that for instance you read theater and then you went to read law. Yeah. It was a pursuit of knowledge. Knowledge is never wasted. And for me people look at me and say oh you knew you were going to go into government. But it made me ready. It made me to today my credentials are good enough to hold any kind of public office. Apart from having put in time into work because post-graduation this is 40 years. So I can hold any public position today because I qualify for it both experientially and of course academically. And then having read law you found it easier to navigate the law aspect of your job. Today I have I can't mention names but there are people that have been exploited on a daily basis. There are corporations who will just grab your stuff and use it and hope that they can just stampede you. And they did it to me yes. A corporation actually did it to me. Took my program that I created myself and slammed it on their channel and I'm looking at it and I'm like this can't be happening. They know me. They see my name and nobody comes to me to say we are running this thing on our channel or we want to run this on our channel instead I'm getting reports and video recording and I told my lawyers go make the approach and at first they were trying to be like oh no but when they saw the facts on the table and I said I will if this would be the last thing if this is the last thing with my last breath I would teach you not to do it to another person when I'm done with you guys. Also they had the good sense to quickly start appealing to my human side not without their pain so that enablement comes from having gone to school studied law and also being able to stay with them that aspect of the law teach younger lawyers about it because there is just so much in today's world you cannot be talking about content content content content without seeking to look at the people who are producing the content and protecting them because content goes across boundaries without borders and there is so much in there legally the legal regimen for that whole body of it's amazing and there are lawyers who are still saying oh I want to enter into the entertainment space but I don't know what to do when the entertainment space is already surrounded the entertainment space is begging you to come in because what happens in Nigeria is that people look at practitioners and expect practitioners to be the wants to be the change in whatever they are doing. I want to come in and clock in as an actor on a daily basis so I would rather that a banker is watching the figures and watching what the data is saying about my work instead of you waiting for me to come to your bank to tell you oh there is so much money in this work that I do come and give me the money for it as opposed to them coming into the space and looking at it and seeing how they can we'll take a break now when we're back we're going to talk about something that I know is very dear to RMDE which is mentorship, mentoring the younger generation a few big names lay claim to him being their mentor, stay tuned you're welcome back it's still timeless conversations RMDE, let's talk about you you have given a lot of your network, your space to younger people every time Ali Baba speaks of his sojourn in Lagos your name is within the first two or three sentences ah nice to meet you show me the way why do you do stuff like that? because I have had the opportunity of also being embraced and mentored by some of the biggest names in the industry I met Uncle Olu J. Cubs I met Uncle Peter Doche I met Professor Walaishu Enkar and so on and so forth now somebody doesn't have to you don't have to be with somebody in close proximity to be for the person to be your mentor no so you see them you love their work and so you aspire to want to be like them or be even bigger than what they have done and so for me for me every time that younger people come to me it's a teaching moment I was born to teach, I teach and so I've had the privilege of encountering people like Ali Baba when he first came into Lagos and what I liked about him was the hunger not very many people come to you and say well I'm a comedian and I funny die and so I make me laugh now and there and there he just he went at it but the next 20 minutes and he won't be getting okay you funny is okay so it was a joy for me to be able to work with him and take him around and show him the ropes I had similar encounter with Moody I remember I was mourning when Moody would come to me and say to me bros I said be so I just need help you know I was in mourning my late wife when I got tired of listening to this young man I just called my younger brother one day and I said you know I think it was at that time in 96 it was about 18,000 18,000 now so that he needed for his shop and I gave it to my brother and I said go and pay this money to the landlord and I told him and I said don't make me regret this this investment in your life and today the man owns an entire street with his fashion brand I'm very proud of him in fact after that first rent that I paid he came to me again so I need more money so this time you know you have shares in my thing you'll be my partner and I said to him what would you think if tomorrow you now make money I will not come and say how far today how much you don't make and if you have gotten married I'm getting married and our wives should not be looking at each other like this one just comes here to take money I said don't worry so I gave him money again and I said I don't want any part of it just do well that's all I want and I'm happy to report that he pays it forward of course Bovee was me that gave him his first job he was my PA tell you babyface I took him under my wing are you even in I am on the ring together nothing about him but when I was like he found his way to me and till today he's still under my wings and I am happy to help so I'm happy that I'm in the position to inspire younger people there are younger actors today not very many people know that I ran a workshop an acting workshop where Desmond Elliott was one of my students he was? yes he was one of my students and you know you can tell because good work is light knowledge is light I remember at the end of our course of my workshop with them I said this one you you will go for I remember saying to me one day that I know that you train this boy but you have to tell him to stop trying to act like you he has to find his own don't worry he is young he will he will define himself for now this is I'm happy today is killing it as a legislator and also as a film producer I'm happy to be of help there are so many more there are people who see me and say to me oh because of you I read theatre because of you my chart is reading theatre one of the biggest things that happened to me that day I just broke down and cried when I was building a molly there was a day that I had run out of money that day I was like you know what 12 o'clock I didn't have money to pay I didn't have cash for the food 12 o'clock I shut the place down and let everybody go and I have money I will continue so I usually would drive to my site around 5 pm so that day at 12 o'clock I said let me go and shut down the place so I didn't get until about one and I saw them working I called the foreman he said ah the owner of the school yeah my place there just came and was asking that she always liked this land she wanted to buy this land they said oh this is the place oh that is the yogurt too so she left and sent I think 50 bags of cement to my site and gave instructions don't tell not to come to me I just tell him I said welcome to the neighborhood so that day I'm like I don't think I desire anything so when people show me kindness so I'm like no I'm going to meet this woman why would she just give me 50 bags of cement so I went to her school and I finally saw her and she said oh it's for nothing but since you came let me show you something so she went to her filing cabinet and drew it out and brought out a paper plate and showed me the paper plate and I saw my autograph and you know that time there was no phone there was no phone there was no autograph and all that so I saw my signature on the plate and I said do you remember this plate I said I think I I think I remember when I first have been in London it says yes my daughter saw you in London at a party in London and came to you and said she loves acting and you signed this plate you signed her party plate that she was supposed to eat you signed it and she kept it wow you said today my daughter is studying theater because of you she's specializing on radio and everything and I just started crying so I mean that for me years later a few years later the data we come back to Nigeria and the woman calls me and says daughter is around she wants to do radio internship I said leave it to me I got a repair I called the remodopathy at the time and they were happy to put her on radio and then of course the mother could hear her voice so when things like this happen you are thankful for the kind of life you've learned that you can be it's not easy to be a role model it's very tasking because then you can't you can't have a break yeah that's the truth you cannot take a break and do a it is very tasking talking about it being tasking brings to mind the thought of you say like since 1985 or 1984 you've been in Lagos resident fully resident a citizen of the city or state right and you have been playing lead role since the early 2000s no since since 1984 I'm whining you because for stage I translated into television movies what have you brought to your craft that sustained you as the go to lead person, lead man in your career it's dedication because when you are dedicated to your craft you will hone it because it's there we are all gifted in some way with something or the other it is identifying that thing earlier on even though I've served in government for 8 years and the lawyer I always start by saying my name is Richard Buffett and I'm an actor that's it full stop you will discover in the course of our interaction that I'm a leader I'm a life coach I'm a speaker I'm a Sunday school teacher I can moonlight as a pastor sometimes you know I'm a lawyer and I can be a politician so it is that so I it is that I'm doing with everything that is inside me I pour into everything that is inside that I'm asked to do there is something that I say and I'll say this in closing maybe that will help somebody out there when they say the eyes are the windows to the soul it is very true of actors and the camera when the camera looks at the actor on TV or on film it can see to the soul of the actor and if the camera sees the audience the audience POV if you are faking it it will catch you you can only fake it for this long but if you are not faking it if you truly love the job and respect the job and respect the people for who you do it for the people who find it that is the convergence of God blessing the work of your hand so it is way that's dedication and respect for the audience converges with God's blessing that you blow because the people can see you talking about blow black book I've watched it twice black book is probably people say some of my colleagues said to me bros you can now retire it's being called the biggest African title ever to the stream because we did incredible numbers it's the first film that has hit the global number three in Africa even from South Africa out of Africa none has hit number three yes none none whatsoever we were number one in South Korea in Hong Kong we were three in the US at some point three in UK three in Canada we took the whole world by storm the figure I heard the last time was like 17 million views we've gone over 17 million views you know how people always calculate stuff for you yeah so if they are returning what's it called to you stream unfortunately the negotiations are already done before the because you never know but the beautiful thing is that you are up there now you are global people are seeing you are seeing you globally it means that you only need to cap this to stay there and then every good thing will come will come seek you first the kingdom every good thing will come because we do everything to the excellence of his name I'm not afraid to say I'm a man of faith bro I know that I know that this is the this is the this is the icing on the cake yes because I recall that people thought oh you are studying so he's just going to be dancing he's going to be playing out of nowhere he went to Rio out of nowhere what are you reading now well I am going to do the Harvard course I'm going to do something on the issue just to fulfill a yearning in my heart it's a yearning it will come to it will be useful as always because knowledge is never lost I believe that the way leadership is taught now is very different from how it was taught maybe 20 years ago when I was going to go for that course so I still think that it is something that never goes out of fashion do you have a political ambition absolutely no but you know every one of us cannot make change from only the political side I'm not a vast to working to contributing my quota I'm also at the state level if nature happens to conspire to put me at the national level contribute my quota of course I will proudly actually saw something that you did recently something about mortality oh yes I learned my voice and my name and my image to different kinds of campaigns I'm a he for she again I'm my mother's child anything that has to do with women's rights I'm a champion for that I stand up for women any day any time I bring up my kids to my sons to defend women and their sisters every time there is no excuse for that not that they are weaker but that's how we are wired we are wired to protect and to serve and so every time that I called upon or I see an opportunity to lend my voice to any kind of campaign that would make humanity better I will I think that our problem is that we did the wrong turn and we have all lost our humanity that's quite sad as simple as the junction of loving your neighbor as yourself it is that simple but then again man loves to complicate things I will find a solution to the complication to the complication that he created oh my goodness son on a regular day one would expect that you will be on set so when you are not on set what do you do what are the other things you are involved in oh I teach I teach a lot like I said I'm a life coach so I find myself in different in fact nowadays I find that when I travel if I travel 10 times I'm brought every year 8 times I'm an invitation to teach or to speak at at different conferences I speak at tech conferences people will be like what is he coming to say I speak at leadership at entrepreneurial conferences I have spoken it's a thing that I just do and GB has invited me twice to Flutterwave I've spoken twice in Flutterwave the last time I spoke there I have this pet theory that the liberation of Nigeria is going to be by a small tribe of these young people and when I say that because they are constantly providing solutions for economics for social things these same people these same small tribe are the ones that will perfect biometric system and all of that and at some point in Nigeria NIN, BVN Voters card and all of that will be linked if you are not in the database you cannot vote so every voter can be accounted for the fraud or the discrepancies in our election in the next 2-3 elections cycle will be reduced to less than 10% and that is from where the liberation will come and when people think that the progress right now is in fintech and in technology it is just an abomination of what is to come within the election within our political life because when you fix that everything else will be fixed look at what happens when in a hospital in Lagos state at that time when it started they say go and pay them they say no don't pay them go to UBA or go to that bank and go and pay and immediately everything begins to change that is what the application of technology does when you start to apply technology to every phase of governance and gather the data that change that you thought was impossible will begin to change we can begin to hold all our leaders responsible for whatever thing that they are not doing because we can fall back and say you are not going next year all the voters we have all of them we reach them and say this one say non-entities not going next year and you will not go and you cannot move the process anymore and so that's from where so when I go to these places I speak to them and I let them know that look you people are the change you are the ones that will change this country and it's not tomorrow you are changing it now but you think that you are doing it for money but it is not for money it's not the economics of it it is going to affect it is from the economics that it goes to the political and then leadership will have no choice but to bring everything under one umbrella we are going to stop now let me thank you for your time and I want you to make a public commitment that very soon you will be back oh that's easy I will be back when you come back when you come back from your migration that's our little joke everyone it's been nice having our brother our friend RMD with us on timeless conversations we had timeless conversations really and I'm sure anytime we play this back we will say okay when are we doing it again as soon as you are around again we are going to do thank you so much thank you till next time bye