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Alex Byanyiko, ace broadcaster, quits his plum job at the Nigerian Television Authority to pursue a career in filmmaking and music
| By Anayo Ezugwu | May 30, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
All through his life, he had always wanted to be a filmmaker. This ambition propelled him to quit his promising broadcasting career with the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, after six years. Alex Byanyiko, broadcaster and filmmaker, told Realnews he quit the NTA job in April 2016 because it was limiting his filmmaking aspirations.
While at NTA, Byanyiko joggled his routine with making films, writing scripts and recording his rap music. Part of his job there included reporting, casting, directing or editing news. He also wrote scripts for Tales by Moonlight and Weekend Deal programmes.
His ambition got a boost in 2013, when he made a short film called The Wrong Number. It was a story of a man who takes the wrong decision to solve his marital problems and in the process, compounded it. His other works include Mr Rendel, a film, Getting High, a rap song on the dangers of drugs and Oluwa Mi, a video he shot, edited and directed.
Byanyiko said he left the NTA to have enough time to actualise his dreams. “Even before going to Kaduna Polytechnic to study Mass Communication, I already knew what exactly I wanted to do. When I finished studying, I wanted to go straight to Lagos to develop myself, considering the fact that Lagos is the hub of film making.
“But just as I finished my studies, I learnt that NTA was employing. So I took the NTA job just as a stepping stone. I knew that I wasn’t going to build a career there. That’s the more reason it was easy for me to leave because I knew that if I stayed there I won’t be able to use my full potentials as a film maker. I could be limited in what I wanted to do. You know the industry is very competitive. So I needed to constantly learn which I think while still in NTA I wouldn’t be able to do,” he said.
Byanyiko’s love for rap music started in 1996. “All I wanted to do at that point in time was just to rap. Later around 2001, from reading novels, I fell in love with writing. And the Novel that inspired me was Oliver Twist. When I read it, I just fell in love with storytelling so I started trying my hands at writing short stories,” he said.
In 2008, a story he wrote fetched him N91, 000 from a local based filmmaker, Hakim Sani. Although Byanyiko said that was small, but he felt good knowing somebody could actually pay him for his work.
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