Abayomi G. Omotayo
Lai Mohammed, Nigeria's Minister of Information and Culture
Preamble
1. This is for all the current opposition parties who may one day become the
ruling party. A vociferous spokesperson of your party does not necessarily
translate to an effective Minister of Information and Culture. Halo effect it
is called.
2. Thoughtless people are careless
talkers. Nigeria has a fair share of thoughtless leaders hence incessant
careless talks.
“Most states today have
more than one festival a year, but the packaging and lack of capacity has not
enabled them to make the most out of these festivals. There’s a particular
masquerade in the south east, it takes 100 people to dress him, another 100
people to undress him. If this masquerade is well-packaged, it can provide
employment in one week for more than 1000 young men. These are some of the
untapped potentials.” – Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture
Above are the words of our backwardly but nonetheless aspirational
Minister of Information and Culture. This statement was in 2016. I thought I’d heard
it all until four days ago, precisely Saturday 15 July, 2017 when the minister
during a visit
to the headquarters of the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) outdid himself with another bombshell. He said the Federal
Government plans to stop the production of Nigerian movies and music outside
the country. According to him, “this
government has agreed that henceforth, whatever we consume in Nigeria in terms
of music and films must be made in Nigeria. We cannot continue to go to South
Africa or any other country to produce our films and then send them back to be
consumed in Nigeria. The Broadcasting Code and the Advertising Code are very
clear on this. For you to classify a product as a Nigerian product, it must
have a certain percentage of Nigerian content”
According to him, this is bad for our economy and unfair to
consumers because “when they get there,
they will patronise the economy of that country and then bring the products
back to Nigeria for us to consume. It is like somebody going to China or Japan
to make a product that looks like palm wine and bring it back home to label it
Nigerian palm wine”. These words sound patriotic but has the government
also been devoted to the improvement of the creative industry in Nigeria?
1.
He who pays the piper dictates the tune and dear Mr. Lai,
you and the FG clearly do not pay the piper here. An artiste or a film/music
producer raises capital by himself. No thanks to the banks who are only
supportive on paper and in adverts but not in reality. They tell you to bring
the X Chromosome of your ancestors as collateral with a debt plunging interest
rate to match. After raising capital through sweat and blood, no serious
artiste wants to churn out mediocre material he therefore opts for the best
location that will avail him quality without any undue preference for his
country. This is not being unpatriotic, it is just being sensible and business
smart.
2.
Mr Lai., where are the infrastructures that our entertainers
can leverage on in churning out quality works? In Lagos, the undisputed hotbed
of entertainment and nucleus of the creative industry in Nigeria, it is easier for
a camel to pass through the eye of a needle that for a film or music video crew
to shoot a movie undisturbed by touts. This in itself is a major challenge that
your government needs to give attention. Beyond that, where are the film
villages, entertainment hubs, studios and resource centers that players in the
creative industry can take advantage of instead of going abroad to make their
videos and music?
3.
In the end, the bottom line is really about bottom line.
Profitability is what the investors, artistes and producers consider and in
ensuring that this is achieved, there must be good quality productions which
will give consumers value for their money and ensure willing and continuous
patronage. We may have the know-how and technical resources to produce quality
movies and music videos but we do not have the enabling environment to
profitably do that. A producer will rather have his Nigerian reality TV show
produced in South Africa rather than Nigeria because of critical factors such
as power and infrastructure.
4.
It is 2017 not 1959. The age of Cable TV, Internet
Television, Live Streaming and Digital Downloads and not the age of having just
Western Nigeria Government Broadcasting Corporation (WNTV) as the first and
only Television station in Tropical Africa. This means that the audience is diverse.
Producers and artistes therefore need to consider this in their art so as to
appeal to the global audience. For example, one of the biggest Hollywood franchises,
Fast and Furious, the seventh release was shot in Atlanta. Los Angeles,
Colorado, Abu Dhabi and Tokyo. This means that even when the environment is
conducive, necessity will still push film makers out of the country to make
movies. Sorry Mr, Lai, there is nothing you can do about this.
Instead of trying to bully the creative industry to be more
Nigerian, the Federal Government should simply create a conducive environment
that will make it cheaper and more convenient to make quality and international
standard movies and music videos in Nigeria. Business sense will then dictate
to all players to play in Nigeria and not South Africa, the common destination
for Nigerian artistes for shooting videos.
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