Nigerian filmmaker and entrepreneur, Kunle Afolayan, has revealed that he considered shutting down his film village due to the escalating cost of diesel required to power the facility.
Afolayan said the resort, known as KAP Village, has been without public electricity since its establishment, forcing him to rely heavily on diesel to keep operations running.
Speaking on the Nidacity podcast hosted by former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, in an episode released on YouTube on Tuesday, the filmmaker said the rising cost of diesel had become unsustainable.
He disclosed that he had previously warned that the facility could be forced to close if the power situation persisted, adding that an associate later offered to supply diesel on credit to keep the resort running.
“I believe so much in this country. We haven’t had electricity in KAP Village since the beginning. So we’ve been running on diesel,” Afolayan said.
“I did a post a few months ago that we can’t sustain this diesel thing. We’re going to close the resort, but then there is another friend who said, ‘I will sell diesel to you on credit.’ And I’m like, it’s still not sustainable.”
In a bid to find a lasting solution, Afolayan said he had begun exploring renewable energy options for the facility.
According to him, about N200m had already been spent on a green energy project, although the investment was not sufficient to power the entire resort.
“So right now, we’re talking to a lot of people to try and see how to do green energy. We did one last year, which cost about N200m, but it’s not enough to power the entire resort,” he said.
Afolayan, who said he had invested more than N8bn of his personal funds into the film village, called for government support to sustain the project.
He argued that the scale of his investment and the facility’s contribution to the creative industry should make it eligible for assistance from relevant government agencies.
“And if we’ve managed to do that, I think there should be some sort of support, like from government agencies,” he said.
The filmmaker also explained that the decision to build accommodation at the film village was influenced by the difficulties his cast and crew faced while shooting his movie, Anikulapo.
He said the production team had to lodge in private homes because there was not enough accommodation, with some actors even bringing personal belongings from their homes.
“When we shot Anikulapo, we didn’t have 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.
