Encomium
‘Shuga is a good initiative’-BIYI BANDELE (Director)
What drew you to the Shuga project?
Several things drew me to the Shuga project, but the most important thing was the idea behind Shuga. Shuga was created as a way of spreading awareness among young people about the spread of HIV. What we set out to do is empower and bolden young people with responsibility for their sexual life. We live in a country now that has about 4.1 million people suffering from HIV. The high figure is scary. And in this same country, there seems to be absence of any public discussion about how to deal and tackle the problem and I think it you get people talking that will help tackle the problem. That was what really led me to it.
This series was shot in Nigeria for the first time after two previous seasons in Kenya. What distinctions should we expect from this third season asides location changes? What exclusively Biyi Bandele touches should we be expecting? What will be the hallmark of this series?
I am not going to say what it is right now but I know what I have shot, I will just say I love the people in the series and I wasn’t trying to compete with it. I just wanted to have something to do in the city of Lagos and look at the target of people aged 10-25 years old, try and look at the world from their own eyes. I think what we have shot is something extraordinary and nice. I am quite happy with what we have right now and I know people will enjoy this season as it is one of my best work yet.
To you, what does the young Nigerian and indeed, the young African represent?
Hope, the future. I mean that is another reason why I signed on to direct this season of Shuga because most people suffering from HIV have a future. Basically to invest in them, their health and education. If we are going to go anywhere as a nation, we have to concentrate on Africa. I travel all over the continent and I see these young people who have a lot of confidence, which is great.
Where do you think Nigeria stands in terms of acting, production, technical talent? How soon will we be able to independently tell our own stories, our own way?
I think Nigeria has a lot of talent, acting talent. I worked with a group of mostly young actors on this project, some of them were acting for the camera for the first time and they are incredibly and phenomenally talented. I think we need to find ways of harnessing the talent because Nollywood is a great platform. I think it is time we begin to talk about a film school of global standard where you can train 
people to be screen writers, directors, actors, direct for cinematography, production designers.
What is your take on the Shuga message (sexual health and what not? How important of a conversation is it amongst today’s enlightened, tech savvy youth?
The Shuga message is absolutely crucial. I think we need to take the Shuga message out and get people talking about things like sex and HIV. If you got to Nairobi and Kampala, they have one of the highest HIV statistics in the world. Instead of holding on to the message that had been preached for years that haven’t yielded any result that the only way to prevent STDs is by abstinence, they did the sensible thing which was to start educating the public about protecting themselves. They were not preaching, they were spreading the message. That if you were going to do this, then you should be aware of the consequence. Then if you are aware, use protection and as a result of that, Uganda now has one of the lowest rate of HIV victims in the world. It isn’t rocket science; we just need to do the basic thing.
You handpicked award-winning scriptwriter, Kemi Adesoye to work with you on this project. Tell us about this.
I saw KunleAfolayan’s movie, and I loved it. When I saw that it was written by Kemi, I made a mental note that this was the right person I wanted to collaborate with on something. I didn’t know what then. But when I met with MTV about Shuga, the first thing I said was I wanted a Nigerian writing team to work on it. That was absolutely important for me. The past series have been written by a South African team. I loved the last two series but I felt that if anyone was going to write about Lagos, it had to be the people who experience Lagos on a daily basis. Kemi lives in Lagos, so we got in touch with her. And fortunately she was available. And she put together a team of writers and here we are.
What is your take on the MTV initiation for Shuga?
I think it is great that a channel like MTV Base, which is social and pop will come up with an idea like Shuga. I think it is brilliant.
