World Bank to spend $20m on filmmaking in Nigeria

Speaking during the Kano leg of the World Bank’s meeting with Nigerian filmmakers last week at Mambayyah House, Chioma Nwagboso, of the Finance and Private Sector Development Unit of the bank said that the support had become necessary considering the growth of the industry which has been rated second in the world. Nwagboso noted that […]

Speaking during the Kano leg of the World Bank’s meeting with Nigerian filmmakers last week at Mambayyah House, Chioma Nwagboso, of the Finance and Private Sector Development Unit of the bank said that the support had become necessary considering the growth of the industry which has been rated second in the world.

Nwagboso noted that a similar meeting was held in Lagos, Abuja, and Enugu with the view of improving filmmaking in the country. The meeting was aimed at generating and exchanging ideas by bringing together all stakeholders to create a common vision.

Nwagboso also explained that a research on films industries around the world had found out that, though high in quantity, Nigerian films were low in quality with very low budgets.

According to the study, Nigerian films were widely shown all over the African continent on national broadcasting networks without paying royalties to the filmmakers and until the industry could capture a greater proportion of the revenue stream, it would be consigned to making low budget, low quality productions and would not be able to scale up its productions and provide a large number of well paid jobs.

It was in view of these problems that the World Bank picked up the challenge to remedy the situation by bringing together all stakeholders to dialogue.

The Nigerian film industry, comprising of both southern and northern filmmakers, has been reported to be worth $250 million and employs 200,000 people directly while providing up to one million job opportunities indirectly.

The World Bank research highlighted the need for improved quality at all stages, starting from production up to post production processes.

The support will be tilted towards access to finance which was identified as a major problem for the Nigerian movie industry as most movies are sponsored by the producers. The meeting brought to light the fact that Nigerian banks are not willing to extend credit to the industry partly due to lack of structural organisation.

Another pressing problem of the industry to be taken care of is the issue of training and piracy. The stakeholders noted that formal training for the filmmakers was paramount in order to acquaint filmmakers with the rudiments of the profession.

The meeting observed that piracy was the scourge of the Nigerian entertainment industry. It was noted that “the pirate has hijacked and robbed the industry of all its gains. With little input, he reaps many times more than the genuine investors in the industry.  The pirate is not interested in the creativity, time, work and effort. He waits for the completed works, gets a copy, mass dub and rushes to the market before the authorised marketer or distributor to sell it at a price often less than the production cost”.

The meeting agreed that in order to control piracy, a trade mark would be stamped on all certified copies and awareness would be created in such a way that people would know what was original and what was fake.