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

Popular Nigerian Actor and film producer, Kunle Afolayan shares with Saturday Beats the reasons why he enrolled his eight-year-old son as an apprentice in a mechanic workshop.

He had recently shared a video of his son Darimisire spending his holiday in a mechanic workshop. The video got a lot of positive reactions from his fans on social media.

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 a 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.

Afolayan who just launched a clothing line said that he never thought he would go into the 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.”

“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 the return is not guaranteed except if you get distribution outside Nigeria.”