For Ebi Akpeti, A Writing Perfected From Growing Pains

Ebimoboere Omoaruke Akpeti is an author and banker. Wale Adenuga has made one of her novels, The Perfect Church, into a movie. She speaks on the novel and how she writes despite her tight schedule

By Gregory Austin Nwakunor

DATELINE: March 6, a Saturday afternoon in an eatery in Ogudu, Lagos. The door flung open and Ebimoboere Akpeti glides in with a youthful bounce. She’s casually dressed in a tee shirt with the inscription The Perfect Church in the front. She has a flat heel sandal on her legs.

  This is not the best place to have an interview, but not with a humourous person. Ebimoere is a chatterbox. And you’re sure to enjoy her company, even when dining.

  She smiles to every joke, and creates many. Each character she creates in her novel represents her almost humorous existence. It’s impossible not to notice this on a first meeting.

  Ebi, as she is popularly called, however, says, “these characters are not just extension of my humorous nature, but to give hope to humanity.” She stares into an empty spaces and grimaces.

  “Look at the character Oyinkro in Growing Pains. People were just waiting for the man to die because life was over for him. But did he?” she asks, as if expecting answer.

  “No, because at the end of the story, you would see that he was not only able to get up, he was also able to get back in line! So that’s what my stories are all about.”

  The lady, whose name, Ebimoboere, means the girl that came with goodluck, muses, “writers write about what they know. I write stories about events that hold in our environment. I write about unemployment, drugs, poverty and other issues in our society, and I use fiction to show how people can surmount these challenges.”

She talks animatedly, waving her hands as if offering them as a gift to her guest. “They are to encourage people… you know, just to say that no matter how far you have fallen, you can still get back on your feet.”
  Her latest work, The Perfect Church, is currently making waves. Now shot into a movie, it is showing in cinemas across the country. So, what inspired the writing and what does she think of the movie interpretation? 

  “Well…” She pauses. Pregnant silence follows. “I will say God gave me the ideas. I can’t really say exactly how. I started and completed it in about six hours.”

  She says, wryly,  “I never expected it to turn out like this and that it will one day pay Ramsey Nouah’s actor fees.”

 From Ebi’s seated position, passion lifts her voice and raises her out of the chair, “I was really impressed when I saw the movie and would be forever grateful to Wale Adenuga for investing his millions to turn my dream into a reality.”

  She laughs and flicks her eyes; a shadow of hope rushes in. “Honestly, he has turned this little girl into a true believer. I now know that anything the mind conceives, it can achieve. It’s just for one person to believe in you.  After writing the book, I was wondering how to take my writing to a new level. I was watching super story and then something just hit me that Wale Adenuga is the one that should produce one of my stories in one of his super story series. At that time, I wasn’t even thinking of The Perfect Church. I was thinking of Growing Pains. Anyway, I got his phone number from one of my colleagues in the office, I went to his office one Saturday and met him and gave him the books.”

  Talking slowly, she says, “it’s funny now but when I first gave him the books, I remember the first thing he said, ‘so how much will you pay me for producing your books’ but I wasn’t even expecting money all I wanted was for someone to produce it and keep the rights in my name. He read it, and the next weekend, he called me again and said ‘I read it, I gave it to my wife and she has also read it. I gave it to my daughter, who has equally read it; and all of us have decided The Perfect Church is the script I have been looking for’. That day was one of the best days of my life.” 

  She wears a cheerful mien, as she speaks.  Her round face broadens, convincingly and her dark colour glistens. She says, “and looking through the film and even during the premiere, you could see that he did not spare any expense in making the movie. He got the best actors in the industry and they interpreted the book very well. I am very grateful to him and most especially to the Almighty God for directing me to him.”

  She dabs her face with a white handkerchief. She snorts: “Three things I believe have been responsible for everything that is happening in my life today: God Almighty and the fact that I worship in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). From the day I joined RCCG, it seemed liked I had tapped into a covenant with God for a lot of things. My family has been very instrumental in my writings.  Finally, the few places I have built my career such as Purples Consult, The Week Magazine and UBA, where I currently work.”

  Looking back, she now understands that it was all a process and part of what God has done in her life.

 She relaxes and a broad smile fills her face. “I see the future as being very interesting and that is all I have ever wanted — a life that is truly interesting, where I can impact lives by what I write. I want to write books that will endure for generations to come. While people are thinking of the next election, I want to think of the next generation and hope that my stories will serve to guide them in their quest to make this world a better place.”

  What’s her goal as a writer? Nobel? Caine? Booker? What really?

  “The truth is, I don’t really have a goal. I don’t aspire to get rich, famous or win any prize, but if I do, it will be good. Writing is something I’m passionate about and something I would do whether I get paid for it or not,” she says, her eyes twitching.
  Her encounter with writing?

  Ebi says in a gripping voice, “I always say it was by accident and I insist that I started writing by chance. There was never a time I sat down to say I wanted to be a writer. What I really wanted to do was sing. I used to sing all the time because as far as I was concerned back then, I was Whitney Houston’s younger sister even though it was obvious that my talent did not lie in singing. I began writing out of a need to fill the emptiness in my heart at a time in my life when I had nothing to do. I created two characters: one, of a deranged man; and a young lady trying to survive on the streets of Lagos. These two people, Oyinkro and Yvonne, became the main characters in Growing Pains.”

  Book opens the eyes of the readers to the ‘double’ life of Akpeti. But you can’t blame her for this. She’s a writer and banker.
  After her Master of Science degree in Finance, for some reason, which she now understands, she just could not get a job.

  “I was jobless for some years and out of frustration, I wrote a story titled Growing Pains. I took the story to a media house for it to be published and when the editor saw it, he was impressed and employed me right on the spot and since then, I have written so many other books. Stories are all around us each and everyday. In fact, it is stories that make sense of the world for me. I was just faithful with the gift God gave me and that was how it all began. I did not want to be perfect, I did not want to be rich, I just wanted to write,” Ebi breathes.

  The lady, who bagged her first degree in Business Management from the University of Calabar, also holds a Master’s degree in Media and Communication to her string of certificates.
  As a media relations’ officer/banker, how does her job impact on her literary calling?

  “I write when I get the urge, which is virtually all the time,” she says. “Balancing time between different types of writing projects is definitely something that I struggle with but the good thing is that my job complements my writing. As a media relations’ officer in a bank, I do a lot of writing and that has greatly improved my writing. When I began to write, I did not aim at perfection, I just wanted to give my all to something I knew I could do and since then, I have become better at writing stories because of the constant use of words on the job. My job is the greatest motivation for my stories and I thank God for it. I would not have it any other way.”
  She says, “people always ask me that question because they wonder how I’m able to write in spite of my daily responsibilities as a full time banker, but it’s never been a problem. Writing is how I relieve myself from stress. Every blessed day, before I sleep, I write something about that day. I just jot it down.”

  In 2006, she was one of the nominees for the Nigerian Media Merit Awards in Capital Market category.