Nigerian filmmaker and businessman, Kunle Afolayanhas called on the government to support his movie village after investing over N8 billion of his personal funds into the facility.
Afolayan said the lack of electricity at KAP Village had placed a heavy financial burden on the complex, forcing it to rely on diesel to keep its operations running.
He made the revelation during an interview with former Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun on the Nidacity podcast, which was posted on YouTube on Tuesday.
According to the filmmaker, the cost of diesel has become so high that sustaining resort operations through generators is increasingly difficult.
“I’m a big believer in this country. We haven’t had electricity in KAP Village since the beginning. So we’ve been running on diesel. A few months ago I wrote a post where I can’t say we can’t sustain this diesel thing. We’re going to close the complex, but then there’s another friend who said, ‘I’ll sell you diesel on credit and I’m like, It’s still not sustainable,'” Afolayan said.
He said efforts were now being made to adopt green energy as an alternative, noting that about N200 million had already been spent on a renewable energy project.
However, Afolayan said the investment was not enough to supply power to the entire complex.
“So now we are talking to a lot of people to try to see how to make green energy. We did one last year which cost about N200 million but it is not enough to power the entire complex,” he said.
The filmmaker said the magnitude of his investment justified assistance from government agencies, especially since he had funded the development largely with his personal resources.
“And if we have managed to do it, I think there should be some kind of support, for example from government agencies,” he said.
Afolayan further argued that some establishments that had received government subsidies had invested considerably less than what he had committed to the film village.
“I know people don’t even do a quarter of what we do and they get a lot of government subsidies,” he said.
Beyond the challenge of electricity, Afolayan said the decision to expand the accommodation facilities at the film village was influenced by the difficulties encountered during the production of his film, Anikulapo.
He recalled that cast and crew members had difficulty finding suitable accommodation during production, and some actors had to bring personal belongings from their homes.
“When we filmed Anikulapo, we had no accommodation. We were squatting in people’s houses. Sola Sobowale and Bimbo Ademoye even brought their mattresses and freezers from home. So I had to build 100 rooms in the film village to make everyone comfortable,” he said.
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