Socrates has failed the Creative Arts industry and deserves NO Appointment besides Punditry – Enock Agyepong writes

Enough of the Fun-Fool respect it’s time to call a spade a spade so we can build this industry.

It’s very unfortunate but you cannot deal with the industry without dealing personally with certain individuals and one of such persons is Mr. Socrates Safo.

The first time I heard of Socrates was when he was the PRO for Fipag and was Banning Film Producers and Actors left, right, center and the one that was really loud was the Yvone Nelson Ban which he personally threatened to extend. Fact is those actions was what lead to most of our Actors leaving for Nigeria.

Then again he lead the scheduling of when movies should be released by Film Producers which brought some confusion as well.

The first time I personally met him was at the Copyright conference room where we had been sent to go do some work at Ghamro and we had to be introduced to the other CMOs.
He was a board member of ARSOG which is in crisis now with no where to even call an office.

He has been through the rank and file and the Top positions of the Movie Industry which has today Collapsed totally and indeed he has accepted that he played a major role in its collapse.

One of the major issue that collapsed the industry was the introduction of Foreign Soap Operas and once again he played a major role in getting it Translated from the foreign language into our local dialect for cash and that ended our Local Movie industry.

After successfully collapsing the industry and packing his tools down he moved straight into politics on the wings of the Creative Arts and fortunately for him was given a position at the National Commission on Culture.
He left that position after a few months to go and follow a Private man around just because NAM needed to use him to get some political clouts so he was poached just like the musicians and given a tear rubber Blue Prado.

He left the government old Toyota Pick up and used his Brand New Prado to follow NAM in the name of some Mission. In fact he sent the then Minister for Creative Arts to visit his new master instead of him taking his new master to the Minister of States office and that’s exactly what NAM recruited him for.

No one should come and tell me he went there to work with NAM in the interest of the Industry because everyone knows what Nam stood for unless you’re an idiot in fact all he did for this industry was for his own clouts and yes Nam was also caught up like a clown in this Industry circus looking for clouts for his Company just like majority of stakeholders and indeed he used all the musicians as signboards to get customers for his business.
Tell me one thing he left in this Industry if Truly he came for the industry not even the Theater Socrates personally spoke about and don’t come and tell me radio & Tv because he is on record for saying that he didn’t need anyone to come and advertise there and so 90 percent of adverts played there was for his companies and that was the purpose of it, in any case does he play adverts or even Music Videos on his channel for free?

Socrates followed him till the law caught up with him and Socrates was at a point fighting against his own government for cracking the whip just because his stomach was at stake.

He came back to the NCC office but another Woman had taken his position and he was left galavanting in the corridors of power.

Fortunately the National Film Authority Act was passed by Parliament and we saw him wearing white white and dancing to Lumba’s song at the inauguration of the board then right after that we heard he was now going to be the Chairman of a Classification committee and this is the reason for this Article.

It is very dangerous to have someone like Socrates Safo who had destroyed the film industry with his activities and Hot Fork Movies to become the Chairman of the Classification Board.

Yes he has a lot of experience but lacks every skill needed to hold such a position.

That position is a vital one and it needs a level headed person to man it and not someone with a Mafia mentality.

Competence:
Even though he has a lot of experience he has shown from all his previous position held that he lacks competence to hold leadership positions in fact his only achievements at the NCC was Zongofest and Bikini Fest which he failed to continue the subsequent years. Even common data he couldn’t collect and he complains too much instead of being innovative and productive.

Mafiarism:
We had a group discussion after a program on happy fm one afternoon and he said we needed to plan a party for all the industry players then poison everyone so we can start with the few ones left, we thought he was joking until he said it years later on happy FM that the only way to build this industry will be to have a Party for industry players and bomb them in the building and then work with the few ones that will survive the bombing.
Fact is after that first discussion we vowed never to attend any industry party that has Socrates invited. In fact 3 weeks ago when we met at Starr fm and we were eating Pizza he declined to eat maybe he was scared of his own shadow. What kind of Mafia head is that.

Temperament:
Very quick tempered and will insult you when you disagree with some of his wack ideas like stopping every Tv stations from showing movies and selling hard copies in a digital age just because he comes from the past where analog was the ish.

Corrupt;
I cannot put anything corruption on him because as far as we’re concerned he works for his pay no matter how awkward the job may be and even his crying on radio and later receiving some 30k as alleged by Aplus was quite understandable so as for corruption we have none on him unless someone tells us.

Vindictive:
Yes he could be but not as serious as others and we know the role he played in our case with Bola and how he wished he himself could deal with us because we dey worry am too much 😂 but we good with him on that score.

Abuse of Power:
He has shown that he is someone who abuses power from his Fipag days when he was banning actors and producers indiscriminately and that is very dangerous for someone in such a position and he has started showing signs of that abuse.

Truthful:
50/50 and it depends on where he stands which can be very problematic when fairness must be applied.

The reason why we are worried about his position is because he has started showing 2 of these symptoms already even before proper work begins at the Classification Committee and that is
1. Incompetence and
2. Abuse of Power.

When he was given the position last year he moved to all the radio and tv stations including 4syte Tv to have meetings only to be called by GIBA back to the table so you ask yourself didn’t he know he was supposed to go through GIBA?
After wasting all that money going round he had to put the entire exercise on hold.

We’ll talk about the second one in a jiffy.

Just before elections we saw him shouting and crying on radio that he is not getting info and also he had not been paid for 4years of work and sometimes has to beg friends to feed and bla bla bla.

Just after elections we saw him back with his classification documents. We had no problem with him continuing his classification campaign but we believe that he should’ve fought for the industry that had its cinemas and theaters closed due to covid but that was not his concern and all he cared about was how to classify the movies of the dead industry and take monies so he can get paid so we asked him where the Producers were going to show those movies after he had classified them and as usual he got angry and left the studio.

To the second one which is the abuse of power.
Now he went on Onua Fm to say that before you upload content unto Social media he’ll have to classify it and one will ask if he Socrates is a share holder at Facebook or Twitter? Or YouTube be for am?

You see Facebook, Twitter and the rest have their own ways of censorship and classification and they can even pull your entire content down if it goes against their community rules and they don’t need Socrates classification to function. In any case can he close Social media down for non compliance to his classification or he thinks social media is like GBC or 4syte.

Fact is anyone who tries to touch the internet either has political intentions to abuse power or is simply ignorant of how new media works or just wants to Ripoff the already broke industry.

He is walking around saying he is going to start work on 1st May when actually he has no Legislative Instrument ie L.I. backing his office and you ask yourself does he not know this or his level of incompetence is skyrocketing.

The truth is No Government cares about the industry and it’s understandable because it’s a privately driven industry and therefore we shouldn’t allow any government to use our own people to hijack the industry. They have a role to play but that role should not stifle our progress.

As it stands now Socrates is a politician and he is on their side that’s why he is pushing the agenda of collecting monies from the industry for government so he can get paid when theaters and cinemas are closed and the industry players remain hungry.

In all this he is a good person BUT he is not fit for any leadership role and must be treated as such in fact his best place is to sit on radio and talk as a pundit so even if you give him the Job he’ll leave it and go and talk on radio.

We’re asking that they find someone to replace him Possibly Ken Addy who is more Experienced so he Socrates can be freely made to represent the head of all Pundits at the Presidency.

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