Funmi Iyanda is not a new face on TV and as such, many would not be surprised that she is preparing to get back on the screen after resting her popular talk show,  New Dawn, last year. Her new project,  Talk With Funmi, is expected to cover Nigeria like never before, showcasing people, culture while focusing on burning issues.

In this interview Funmi, who said she has never desired fame but only came about it as a result of her dedication and passion for her job, told Reporter, Gbenga Bada, why she rested New Dawn, her experiences while working on her new project and the current happenings in her Change A Life foundation.

New Dawn was on for eight years and you rested the programme even though many had become ardent fans and you have gained much popularity among your peers only for you to commence work on another TV programme known as  Talk With Funmi. What was responsible for that action?

I thought  New Dawn had served its purpose. I mean, everything that we could do with that format, we had done. I remember when Olu Maintain came the first time and the second time.  So that is a kind of show that one can continue and be there for 20 years but I didn’t want to be there for 20 years on that particular format. Nigeria’s population is mostly people who live in the rural areas and not in the city, so I thought that it was time to move and I was raised in the Yoruba culture, which says if somebody keeps visiting you in your house everyday, you should also get up one day and visit them in their houses too. I thought that Nigeria had come to my studio-everybody, no matter how powerful or how not powerful they were, came to the studio, so I thought it was time for me to get up and go and meet them in their own homes, villages, towns and communities and in that way showcase Nigeria the way it is.

When actually did you stop  New Dawn?

We stopped  New Dawn in October last year and it’s taking a year to put together what we are about to start, which is  Talk With Funmi, because we had started the shooting even before we stopped New Dawn. But it has been very rewarding and it was a mad experiment that we believe would pay off.

Talk With Funmi would be viewed as a talk show by many, what really have you set out to achieve with the programme?

This particular show is hard to categorise. It is not a talk show, I didn’t want to do a talk show, I have done a talk show for eight years and before that I like to do new things, I like to push the envelope. Before  New Dawn, I had worked first and foremost as a journalist in politics and sports, so, I have been a sport reporter before and I have also done other forms of television including a magazine breakfast shows, which I did for four years as well as documentaries. I wanted to go back to the kind of format that I had done in the past, I wanted to go around Nigeria, I wanted to understand and interpret Nigeria because we are too often about complaints and we don’t even know the facts of what we are complaining about. We don’t even understand the problems so that we can know how to solve them. I didn’t really know I was going to do it and the first thing I did was to find a good director because I knew I didn’t want to do it the way we do things. I wanted it to be done beautifully with good technical feature, so when I found Mr. Chris Dada, I told him what I wanted. He told me that it wasn’t going to work as a talk show because we could just have taken the talk show on the road and we felt we wouldn’t be able to achieve the success we have made. So the format was driven by the desire to tell the story in a truthful and beautiful way. To that extent what we have come up with is something that can’t be categorised because it’s like a mixture of documentary, reality TV show and drama all in one but it is not a talk show.

Would it then be correct to deduce that your discipline as a geography graduate is partly responsible for  Talk With Funmi with all you have said?

That is interesting because I have never thought about it. That is the reason why I tell people that I taught myself geography as no teacher taught me geography. I always say that with a lot of pride because I came out with A1 but I think it’s less of geography and more of the people because we are genuinely interested in people. I find people interesting and that is one thing I guess I inherited from my father because my father is a wanderlust. I like to get out and about and I think Nigeria is beautiful because when I was young, I had the opportunity of travelling around quite a bit and I have memorable times of those journeys and so it was important to show just how fantastic and charming Nigeria is physically. In showing that, Nigeria would be a backdrop of the stories that we tell. But really, I didn’t think about the geography thing, I just thought I like people and I think one of our challenges is how to empower people. So that it doesn’t matter with what you do in life so long as you can do it with dignity and pride and also make a living out of it in doing it, it’s good. I think that is one thing that became clear as we went about shooting  Talk With Funmi. I think we have achieved a lot without even setting out for it and I’m happy about that. But that part of geography, you caught me there, maybe there is a bit of the National Geographic in me.

Your interest in people is one of the things that must have brought about  Talk With Funmi.  Has there ever been any form of hostility during the course of shooting especially in the areas associated with violence and low lifestyle?

It would be hard for many people to do it because people have learnt to be distrustful of the intent of other people. So when you come into their community with 30 men as a crew, they wonder what you want to do and there are things associated with area boys…initially when we get there, particularly when they see foreigners, they are like ‘you want to take photos and abuse Nigeria’ but when they realise it’s Funmi (Iyanda), because I spent many years talking with all forms of people and I don’t see people as low lifes, I see all people as viable and it does help. I remember at Makoko, they reacted negatively…and the people I also worked with are people who are familiar with one terrain or the other and had at one point or the other worked with people and that quickly became something that wasn’t an issue. But yes, it does come up and that would be something that I felt gratified about. I do intend to go to the Niger Delta and all those places and I’m hoping that all those years of work would be leveraged upon to allow me talk to people from various backgrounds and shades of colours in Nigeria. We couldn’t also do it on our own without the Police because they were very supportive of the project. And going by what you said about all these years of hard work, I have interviewed almost everybody that became big in the Police, and of course, I called on them to tell them and each state we have been to provided security for us. But by and large, people talked to us because they felt and knew that we were going to represent them honestly and truthfully.

Personally, would you say that you and your team have been able to achieve all or most of the aims you set out when you began  Talk With Funmi?

We have achieved more than I even dared to dream of because then I was of the opinion of crossing my legs and talking to people and I didn’t know we were going to produce what we eventually produced.

If you watch every episode, it has several layers each, so I didn’t know we were going to be able to tease out all these conversations. I also didn’t know that we were going to produce something so technically sound and outstanding not only in Nigeria but outside the country and everyone that has seen it maintained that it is not only good but would stand shoulder to shoulder with any production out of anywhere in the world.

It was shot on HD and that was far beyond my expectation. Also, it’s just the experience of coming into a sort of brotherhood, sisterhood relationship even though it was difficult. I would not tell you it was an easy thing, it was emotionally, physically and financially draining and everything had to be put in place to achieve this result. So I’m gratified and surprised at the same time about the results and this is unfolding everyday because I believe that we haven’t even seen the end result yet of what it is that we have done.

New Dawn was quite a success and it not only catapulted you into limelight but also showed various philanthropic sides of you. Now, you are out with  Talk With Funmi, don’t you have doubts as regards its marketing and coverage success?

You know one of the things someone asked me when we started this thing is ‘did you position this for the audience?’ I come from the old school of telling stories and I believe if a story is good enough, it should be told and everything would come. However, I am not naïve because this is my 15th year in the media. What we have done is just a preview to people who are looking at sponsoring the show and know the platform with which it would go, so the marketing is in place, we also have commitments which I can’t talk about now. But we have commitments, the programme would air on three different DSTV channels, it would also air either on AIT (Africa Independent Television) or NTA (Nigerian Television Authority) and also air on state-owned TV stations because every state would want to see what the experience was like in their state and also we would syndicate it across Africa. Who knows, it might end up on some international platform. I believe it is going to be more successful than  New Dawn was in terms of marketing, coverage and distribution. I don’t know how successful or big it would get because I have never wanted to be famous, I have only wanted to tell stories and if after telling stories I become famous, it’s simply an after effect for what it is that I do. That is why I say it would be as a result of the hard work that we have put in and our intentions and these are honourable to a large extent. If you put in hard work as we have, I imagine the universal law is that things would fall into place. I have no desire to be famous or want a lot of money rather, I just want to do good work and I want to be able to take care of the people who depend on me. This kind of work gives me fulfilment and I just want to do more. I would also say here that one of the problems that we had while on  New Dawn is that I was so involved in it and it was a daily show and couldn’t do anything else. This is just one and we would do other important projects going on.

Looking at it now and from your antecedent on TV, how long do you see  Talk With Funmi airing on TV and when is it expected to officially berth on stations?

Someone asked me that at the beginning of  New Dawn because they counted all the other shows that I had done and I told them that a series would run as long as long as it has energy. If you look at other international shows, they are the same thing. If they had continued doing  Friends, people would be like it’s enough and it ran for 10 years before it went to DVDs and we still buy. So that is the nature and power of content. For me,  Talk With Funmi would run as long as it has energy. I know when something should stop, I don’t run beyond the time. We also need the people who would make it work, so I don’t want to be stuck doing one kind of thing. However,  Talk With Funmi would start next year and that is strategic because Nigeria would be 50 next year and as a result, a lot of conversations need to be had about where Nigeria is coming from and where it is going. And so, we are positioning it to be there, although we would be filming and we would continue being on the road but they would start seeing it at the beginning of 2010. We would run throughout and get to as many states as possible though we may not be able to do all states but we would do all states that are viable. You can imagine going around with a lot of time and energy but what I can tell you is that  Talk With Funmi would run as long as it has energy. I’m also a talent and I want to find other talents and I also want to stretch myself in other directions.

What informs the story that is being told in each episode of  Talk With Funmi, if one of the things you do is telling the story?

A lot of research and quarrels because each edition does not tell just one story, it tells many stories and each story has many layers. There are many themes, many stories built into one but what determines the story like any productions is research. Like many productions, there are scriptwriters and researchers, who come up with ideas, we also research on the state where we are going and we have an idea of what is obtainable there. This is informed by research and we later shortlist our numbers of research then start scripting the stories but sometimes on the road everything (changes) and so we find a new story. So you have to find people who are quick and inventive and you know one thing about working with all these ‘oyinbo’ director as we call them, though Chris is not ‘oyinbo,’ he’s one of us but has worked all his life in Europe and America. But here we have our own way of doing things and sometimes drive him mad because sometimes, we must have had everything set and something just goes wrong and the idea has to be changed. Some stories are planned out and it works right, others don’t just work fine. And it’s just the result of a good team and my team is the best with the right director. People who have worked with me for so long that they now have emotional attachment to whatever we do, which is why I said content and people never die.

You seem to be one of the few women who get most of the requests they make and get results whenever they knock on people’s doors. How do you feel about that?

I don’t get everything that I ask for but I do get quite a lot. I feel so humbled by the regard that people have for me but you must also notice and remember that I do not go about asking for frivolities and often times, I don’t ask for myself. People do ask me that I know this person and that person and I say, I don’t know them, they come to the studio and I just shake them and some of them I never see again. I don’t go to people’s offices, I don’t go about asking for favours but when I do go, I make sure that I’m asking for something that is of value. Over the years, people have come to know that and that is what I do. The Lagos State Government knows this and they are used to it, so it helps not to go about asking for favours or turning oneself into a nuisance, so that when you do ask for something, they know it would definitely add a lot of value. I add a lot of value on my own name because I was raised by a true Yoruba culture and I don’t want a situation where I would disgrace myself.

You have a project called  Change A Life, which is tasking and now you are saddled with  Talk With Funmi, which would see you going all over the country. How prepared are you to juggle all this and achieve desired results?

People! Right now,  Change A Life has new MD, in the person of Bridget, who is in charge, so that I don’t kill myself. Bridget is interesting because she took a career break as a top-level management staff after working with different organisations and she heard about the project and she decided to work with us. When you do what you know how to do, people would come, though it won’t be easy but people would definitely come. I don’t physically need to run everything myself and the beauty of it all is that when we go out for other projects,  Change A Life finds people itself. In Makoko, we are taking five children from a grandmother, who had them abandoned with her and can’t go to school, we found a school that needed support and we are working with the Lagos State Government on giving the succour, we are interested in doing a water project. So what we do is identify the problems on the road, send it to Bridget and her team and they start working on it and we also get materials from the papers. So everything we do is interwoven and I would not kid you to say it is easy. But then that is life, it is not supposed to be easy.