By Christy Anyanwu
Isaac Moses, the founder and driving force behind Goge Africa, along with his wife, Nneka, started from humble beginning.
He kicked off his broadcasting career on a low key as a voice-over artist and radio presenter. Becoming an actor, TV show host, as well as culture and tourism powerhouse, he has defied daunting odds to succeed in a terrain where many would not even dare, let alone survive.
Speaking with Sunday Sun, he talked about his life over the years and the sojourn of Goge Africa, the popular TV culture and travel show he presents alongside his wife, Nneka.
Goge Africa, how did it start?
It started from small beginnings. I was running a radio show and the producer did not like us playing local music. They preferred American hip-hop and all that. He was of the opinion that Nigerian music would pull down the rating of the programme. So, they wanted us to be playing more of hip-hop. After a while, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I was managing musicians. I was managing artistes like Segun Arinze. Back then when he was a musician, he was my artiste, because I was an artiste manager. I had many friends among them: Tina Onwudiwe, Onyeka Onwenu, Zaaki Adzay, Sunny Neji and lots of them, but I couldn’t play their music on my radio show. After a while, I stopped presenting the programme. I said, let me do a programme where I would be in control of what I played. And I told Nneka that I wanted to do a programme on radio.
When I told her about it, she said, why don’t you do it on TV? I said, but TV is expensive, I don’t have that kind of money. She said, just start.
So, we went about collecting material to start the opening sequence as a montage. And then, I said, if I’m going to do this radio show/TV programme, it has to be two of us. She wasn’t comfortable with it. If you don’t get it right, we’ll do it again until you get it right, I said. So, a lot of things she accepted. That was how we started presenting it together.
At what point did you become famous?
In Ethiopia, I must tell you, I felt like a star. Everybody was coming to our hotel. The first reaction was this: Just because we were there, they were so happy and we made so many friends. We signed on their currency, even our crew. They would bring money and ask us to sign on top of the money. You know, they were going to laminate the money and keep it as souvenirs.
I saw the biggest denomination of their currency, 100 Bir. They brought it for us to sign and we signed it. And the truth is, we were not feeling like stars. Our day was so tight with activities. From there, other countries started inviting us. And each time that we travelled, we became more deliberate about what we wanted to feature. Knowing what people wanted to see and what to sell the country. Gradually, we became destination promoters. So, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt, even the Caribbean countries invited us as well. Yes, the Caribbean, like Barbados. We now go to cultural festivals in America, in Europe, there’s a carnival of cultures taking place in Berlin, Germany. We went there. We started promoting tourism, both locally and internationally. And, honestly, we were loving it. Then Africa Magic acquired the programme. Of course, money started coming in. And then, gradually, advertising agencies started advertising on the programme.
How has it been these 25 years as Goge Africa’s boss?
So, 25 years down the line, we’re still here doing the thing. We enjoy what we do. And as we continue, you know, money will be coming in, small, small. But if money was the major objective, then we wouldn’t have done it. Because we ran Goge Africa for three years before people started advertising. Oh, for two years.
I would do voiceover and plug it in. My wife used to do costumes for movies and TV commercials. They would come to her and buy costumes.
Some would come to buy it for themselves, because she was into fashion, and we put the money into the show. And that was how we were just doing it. Today, it has been from glory to glory.
You are simple in nature and nice, does that have to do with your growing up? Tell us a bit about your growing up years…?
When you grow up in a humble community where everybody sees everybody as brothers and sisters, it’s a different ballgame. We grew up in the North. They would cook during Sallah and bring it to us. The Muslims around us, even those who didn’t know you, even those who were not close to you, would cook and bring food for you to celebrate.
And then you, too, during Christmas, we would cook and take to them. Or during Easter, we would give to all our neighbours around. There was that camaraderie and friendship among neighbours. And you didn’t have to close your doors back then. Everybody seemed like their brother’s keeper. My mother is Igala and her relatives are Muslims. My dad is Igbo. I meet people who are haughty, maybe in the big cities. If you grew up in the big city, you would have a certain level of, you know, arrogance because you have to wear an arrogant look or character so people don’t take advantage of you. Some people wear an arrogant outlook to ward off people who might want to take advantage of them. But when you grow up in a community where everybody’s simple and easygoing, most people practically know each other, you would understand the way I behave. That was the upbringing I had. And you share. I mean, my friends who come from other places, if they come and we’re eating, my mother would share it with everybody. Growing up, when I went to the village, I could go to any of the compounds and say I wanted to eat, and they would give me food. I was not afraid that they would poison me. Do you understand? Those things didn’t get in our mind. So, when you grow up without having such a mindset, you most likely will be nice. You’re not suspicious of people. It’s when you grow up in a place where everybody’s suspicious of you, then you learn to wear a frown so that people don’t think you’re cheap and, if you’re big, you try to flaunt your muscles.
Your marriage has been a successful one, no scandal despite your celebrity status, what’s your advice to young men wanting to marry?
Your wife should be your best friend. As a matter of fact, my wife and I are so close that my friends are not as close as we used to be, and I understand. If your wife is your best friend, your other friends will actually give you space, and when you allow too many intruders into your private life, you might have challenges. Aside from that, a man must be open to his wife because, if you are with a woman and you don’t make her happy, if the woman decides you are going to die, she would do it nicely. Nobody will ever suspect her. You live in the same house, you eat her food, she cooks for you; you are not always there when she cooks. It’s in your best interest to get her back. When you get her back, she’ll get your back. Treat her like a queen and she would treat you like a king. I have female friends, she knows them. I introduce her to all of them and, in a lot of places, some think she is my sister, while others know she is my wife. When she is with a guy, the first thing she does is to introduce the guy to me. So, most people I know she knows, and most people she knows I know. She knows my colleagues, my associates.
There’s no recipe for a successful marriage. It all depends on the two people involved. You put your cards face-up. Most times, when a man has challenges with a woman, it is because the woman is not sure of his finances, the woman is not sure of who his friends are, or where he goes when he says he’s going out. I feel that there’s no point where my wife does not know where I am going or where I am. She knows. There are people I chat with on my phone, but most people don’t know who they are chatting with, unless people who know this is Moses’ number. They usually think they are chatting with madam and, if my phone rings, if I’m not there, she picks it up, or if a message comes she will respond to it. Everything is open. We have a joint account because I trust her judgment. She knows what we have, she is not going to request for what we can’t have. So, we don’t have conflicts.
What are some of the changes you would like to see in the tourism sector?
In tourism, everything is intentional. Everything about building a tourism country or tourism attraction or destination is deliberate. So, the government can start by developing the tourism infrastructure in different communities, because these attractions, if developed properly, become a destination, right? The government can also help by making policies that allow investors to invest in our tourism space. Tourism is a deliberate thing. Nothing is accidental. The government is supposed to put out a communication about tourism. The government should organise and fund tours, invite journalists like you, fund it, take them to tourist sites to see the tourist sites that we have that need to be developed and marketed. They should invite journalists and stakeholders in the business, also invite tour operators from other countries the same way we invite them to come and see what we have, and then they can promote our attractions to their people. And by the time other people get to see what we have, they might decide to come and invest. Apart from showcasing the attractions, they can also pick two or three tourism events or festivals in the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria and put their weight behind them, promoting them to become huge; just like you have all these travels, when people go on pilgrimage in Mecca, what do you think that is? That is tourism. You may call it religious tourism, but it’s tourism. Because at the end of the day look at how much they are raking in from hotels. They are buying memorabilia. The airlines are raking in profits. And then they are paying to visit certain sites there in Mecca or Riyadh. And most tourism sites are not free-entry. There are costs attached to visiting them. That’s the whole idea. Everything is deliberate. They create an attraction, develop it, make it attractive to you, then you come to see it and then you spend money. And things are not cheap at tourism sites. You know that you came prepared, they are selling it to you. You are paying. That’s the role the government needs to play because, at the end of the day, the government will make money from taxes, if these tourism attractions are properly developed. They can make it safe, attractive and viable. There are attractions we take people to in different parts of Nigeria for domestic tourism promotion, but people are scared. Even me, I’m scared. I was at an attraction here in Nigeria when the tour guide fell from the hill. He was rolling, he was rolling downhill. Our cameraman thought it was a show and kept filming. The guy was falling for real. Yes, he broke his back, broke his waist, and broke his feet too. So, these attractions need to be developed.
Working with your wife for the past 25 years as co-producers, how has it been?
How is it like working with my wife? Great! Fun! I get to know her the more and she also gets to know me the more. She understands me, my body language. She knows I don’t want this and I want that. She knows that I have to eat ‘swallow’. I don’t want to eat too much rice, yam or beans. She knows that ‘swallow’ is key. She is not stressful. The only time we have conflict is during production.