Each time the swashbuckling Minister of Communications and
Information (read Re-branding), Mrs Dora Akunyili shares a podium with
Nollywood practitioners or adventurers, she takes her time to give Nollywood a
good dressing down. She cuts the picture of a stringent headmistress cautioning
errant school children.
Daily Triumph Newspaper of November 2009 carried just an
ounce of Minister Akunyili’s peppered vitriol against the forces aligned
against her mission to rescue Nigeria’s image. She blamed Nollywood for Nigeria’s
poor image and charged her to tell our own stories. She said the same thing few
weeks into her appointment as Minister at an interactive workshop with
Nollywood practitioners in Lagos. And I suspect, she says it everyday. She’s
after all a Minister; all they do is say things.
Had Dora Akunyili not being a Minister, she might have
understood the inanity of her assertion but as I fear the cordial distance
Nigerian public officials maintain with reality has a way of deodorising the
embarrassing stench of empty reason. But that is hardly surprising as it
emanates from a Ministry where trite ideas are routinely granted a new lease
and executed with zeal that borders on mania.
How on earth will anyone blame Nollywood for Nigeria’s
sorry image? Did Nollywood invent Juju or 419? Is the President of Actors Guild
of Nigeria operating from Aso Rock? Pray, are Aki and Paw Paw Senate President
and Vice President? Is Genevieve the Minister of Power or is Desmond Eliot the
Minister of Works and Housing? Even Pete Edochie, a strong advocate of
re-branding was kidnapped by a bunch of renegades the police cannot find even
if they were to raise their hands in a gathering.
Minister Akunyili keeps charging Nollywood to tell our own
stories, frankly, I would be very disturbed the day Nollywood begins to tell
our story. The reason is that our story, quite frankly, without putting too
fine a point on it, is a glorified mess.
In President’s Yar Adua’s Independence Day speech the
dearth of concrete, measurable achievement led him to urge Nigerians to at
least be grateful to still be alive. This is a government that returns to the
treasury half of the year’s budget expenditure at the end of each fiscal year
because it is peopled by charlatans of the first order who are so dumb they don’t
even know how to spend money!
Isn’t it an irony that Nigeria is on the list of countries
with the highest immigration rate to other countries only rivalled by
Afghanistan and Iraq – countries at war. Sundays, a maze of crowd so
thick you won’t even recognise your mother flood churches and Fridays, normal
activities are grounded because Nigerians have gone to find God. Yet God hardly
factors in their thoughts and actions. Our politicians swear with the bible or
Koran and it is common knowledge that they hold the key to the squandering of
our hope. The clowns at the National Assembly have spent more days deciding how
to amend the constitution than it took to write the damn document.
And come to think of it, how many times have budget made
provision for the Benin-Ore road and why is it still a death-trap? How come
university students sat at home for four months due to a protracted strike and
the education Minister’s children school abroad? How come we still have a
ministry of health when public officials travel abroad to treat catarrh? How
come we are one of the leading oil producing nations in the world and we still
import fuel? How come after almost 50 years after independence we can’t even
light our streets? Indeed, I’d be very worried the day Nollywood begins
to tell our stories.
It is ironical that while Madam Re-branding wants
Nollywood to lead the campaign to re-brand Nigeria, she is unfazed with the
teething challenges confronting Nollywood. To get funding for movies is
difficult even before the current global economic crises, now its impossible.
The government’s film fund has not left the paper it was written on. Movie
pirates now sell more copies than marketers as Nigerian Copyright Commission
only proclaims her tigertude on paper. In spite of this, Nollywood has done
more to promote Nigeria’s image than all the gaggle of nincompoops who parade
themselves as leaders throughout the country.
Minister Akunyili is still fuming over a Sony advert that
implied that Nigerians are scammers (our favourite past-time anyway) and some
air-headed people too wanted an apology because District 9, a South African
film purportedly claimed that Nigerians were cannibals and scammers. Emeka Mba’s
Censors board and Madam Re-branding were outraged because for the first time
somebody had enough balls to tell our story.
Minister Akunyili advices Nollywood to focus on the
positive things and I wonder how many positive things are we reputed for? Yes,
we produce a world class literary genius in Chinua Achebe but we left him in a
wheel chair just because someone felt the allocation to fix the road will sit
better in his private account. We sent out our soldiers to stop other people’s
war (while ours rages unabated) and when they return some higher officials
stole their monies and we hound them in jail when they shouted too loud. Yes,
we are 150 million strong and yet we awarded the highest office in the land to
a man who’ve all been asked to pray that he lives as a matter of national
priority.
Studies suggest that behaviour is patterned after media
content. At the same time media content reflects the value pattern of the
society. And when it comes to the issue of values, ours is reeking like an open
sewer. Greed, nepotism, ethnicity, corruption and the politics of the belly
have eroded our value system. Successive governments have elevated corruption
to a pedestal so high, its beginning to assume the character of state policy.
Minister Akunyili will be outraged at the level of support
serious governments give their film industry. In Nollywood we have to rent even
the shabby police uniforms we use! Freedom of Information bill remains a mirage
stalling investigative journalism and critical research to produce historical
films that can help our sorry image. When public officials wish to get their
hands dirty, they call up consultants to draw up harebrained designs for the
movie industry which they can’t even explain if their lives depended on it.
Minister Akunyili should be grateful Nollywood is not
telling our story.
Isaac Anyaogu is with the University of Nigeria, Nsukka
and writes movie scripts.
Source: Sahara Reporters
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