Nigerian movie icon Chidi Mokeme recently shared a story about a run-in he had with the police. According to him, he and his crew were stopped by the police one night while carrying some gun props.
Despite their efforts to explain the situation, they were still arrested and subsequently jailed, all because of the gun props.
“I had a couple of brush-ins with the law. Back then, career-wise, entertainers always have brush-ins with the law. Why? Because first, we’re always moving at very awkward times of the night.
Either you’re just going to the gig or coming from the gig, but it always happens at very awkward times. And what makes it very awkward is when they [police] ask you and you say you’re going to work.
That’s the problem, “Which work?”, that’s always the problem, “Which work?” So you have to stop first, come down, because they’ll look at you and say “Which work?” then tell you to come down and explain yourself. So whether you’re alone or you’re two or you’re three, which works?
Till today, you have production vehicles moving in the middle of the night packed full of crew members or cast, you have to stop and come down and explain yourself.
Which work that all of you know each other? And if you don’t have a known face, you’re going to have a big problem.
So on one of those nights, we ended up in jail after we’d been rounded up with gun props. We had gun props in the car so they thought they were guns.”
