Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister for Information in Nigeria is making a lot of enemies with his utterances in recent times. How on earth could he say Nigerian movie and TV producers should not venture beyond the shores of Nigeria to produce their products? Is Mohammad trying to ignorantly fix a restriction on creativity or perhaps his pronouncements are made from a passionate desire for Nigeria to develop? Recently, Mohammed also added insult to this injury when he said Nigerian companies should stop promoting foreign sports competitions, arguing that Nigerian companies have a duty to support Nigerian sporting activity like the Nigerian Professional Football League(NPFL).
It appears that Mohammed did not consult anyone before arriving at his conclusions. There are an array of industry professionals under his purview who would have given him proper insight to the challenges many Nigerian practitioners of movies and music face within the shores of Nigeria. Mohammed has failed to see the opportunities his ministry and indeed the government would derive from partnering with and catering for the creative industry.
In the United States of America, the government has made tremendous contributions to the growth of the industry via an enabling environment, funding, provision of props at minimal or no costs at all, providing real life locations when there is a need and creating and enforcing copy right and infringement laws that have helped reduce and control piracy.
The stance of the government of Nigeria as projected by Mohammed not only smacks of ignorance, but also demonstrates desperation for funds on the part of the government. Unknown to Mohammed, it is relatively cheaper and more rewarding to shoot many Nigerian movies and musicals in South Africa where the post production facilities are world class, security is guaranteed and electricity is stable. Production crews who produce and edit in Nigeria often go through a myriad of difficulties, many of which are caused by the unhealthy environment in which they have to work. On the sporting side, competitions like the NPFL need to brace up to the challenge of being properly organized if they want to attract more sponsors. Nobody forces a company to sponsor a competition that does not give its product the mileage it deserves. The number of people who watch the NPFL world wide could never be compared to the English Premiership which is viewed around the world by over a billion enthusiasts and has grown to become a business that has fueled various other businesses around the world. Speaking of Nigeria alone, the EPL produces thousands of indirect jobs via betting, viewing centres and Satellite TV rights. On the movies side, TV stations in Nigeria run on non stop diesel generators. For the production component, not all programmes aired can be provided by the TV stations and so they have tor rely on a myriad of private producers to supply them content. Among these suppliers of content are a few who are willing to seek the best quality in the world for their productions so that they can have a market anywhere they go.
In the final analysis, the government of Nigeria might be highly patriotic in its pronouncements with a view to keeping the financial resources at home, but the minister should not allow his patriotism to be rooted in ignorance of how the creative and sports marketing industries operate. The order of things should be research before you make pronouncements.
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