Kunle Afolayan seeks govt support after N8bn investment in film village

With diesel prices surging, he described the cost of running the facility as unsustainable and said the resort considered closing earlier this year.

“I believe so much in this country. We haven’t had electricity in KAP Village since the beginning. So we’ve been running on diesel. I did a post a few months ago that I cannot be like, we can’t sustain this diesel thing. We’re going to close the resort, but then there is another friend who said I will sell diesel to you on credit and I’m like It’s still not sustainable,” Afolayan said.

To reduce dependence on diesel, Afolayan said about N200 million was spent last year on a green energy system.

He noted that the installation is not sufficient to power the entire resort and that talks are ongoing to expand renewable energy capacity.

“So right now we’re talking to a lot of people to try and see how to do green energy. We did one last year, which cost about N200m, but it’s not enough to power the entire resort,” he said.

The filmmaker argued that, given the N8 billion private investment in the project, government intervention through grants or support from relevant agencies is warranted.

“And if we’ve managed to do that, I think there should be some sort of support, like from government agencies,” he said.

He stated that some businesses receiving government funding have invested significantly less.

“I know people are not even doing one quarter of what we’re doing, and they get a lot of grants from government,” he said.