"Why I Enrolled My Son As A Mechanic Apprentice" - Movie Producer Kunle Afolayan

Nigerian film producer and actor Kunle Afolayan has revealed in a new interview the major reason why he enrolled his eight-year-old son Darimisire as an apprentice in a mechanic workshop.

The Figurine director who earlier shared a video of his son spending his holiday in a mechanic workshop , in a chat with Saturday Beats, disclosed that he wants his son to learn a vocation in addition to his academic studies. In his words in the interview he said;

“Children of this generation may think they are having fun because they didn’t experience what some of us experienced but they are caged. Most of their life is spent either in front of television or the computer game. My children are a bit different; they are not addicted to anything.

Even the most senior one who has a phone, most times I force him to pick the phone because he doesn’t stay on it.

I also want him to learn how to interact with people outside the house and learn how to speak Yoruba so that when he is back in school, he will understand that life has different sides and not everybody is privileged to have what he has,” he added.

The actor who just launched a clothing line added in the interview that he never thought he would go into fashion industry.

“I never planned to have a clothing line; I like to be different, so I decided to use the Adire fabric to improve on the kembes I bought in India. After I designed and made some for myself, people liked it; that was why I decided to make a business out of it.” He said.

While speaking on the challenges the Nigerian movie industry is currently facing, the movie producer said;

“It’s sad that even after many years, we are still talking about the challenges in the movie industry. I saw an interview my father granted in 1980 titled: ‘The problems in the Nigerian Film Industry,’ so you can imagine if after almost forty years we are still discussing challenges.

“We don’t have a proper distribution framework that gives the proper return on investment in movies. We also lack adequate capacity building; I haven’t shot any film in two years because return is not guaranteed except if you get distribution outside Nigeria.”