By Victoria Ige
All five key speakers at the inaugural Nigerian Entertainment Conference which held yesterday in Lagos, unanimously expressed the need for an urgent change in the way the entertainment industry in Nigeria is run.
With central issues identified as lack of systems, funding, education, infrastructure, investments, policy enforcement, flight of talents, compensation, exploitation and practitioners’ welfare, each speaker expressed desire for change, using statistics to highlight what was, what is, what should be, and what could be; while making relevant comparison with similar industries in Europe and America.
The theme of the conference, put together by NET Newspaper LTD, publishers of Nigerian Entertainment Today, was ‘building the industry of our dreams’.
CEO of Megalectrics (owners of Beat FM, Classic FM and Naija FM) Chris Ubosi spoke on the role of media in developing the industry of our dreams while Kola Oyeyemi, GM Consumer Marketing at MTN Nigeria gave a presentation on the topic: ‘Corporate Nigeria and entertainment: Parasitism of symbiosis?‘.
‘The media is considered to be a mirror of the world society. Recently, there’s been a whole lot of discussion about what shapes or influences the society; is it the media that does it or is it the society?’, Chris Ubosi asks.
Ubosi also noted the increasing popularity of social media as well as other trends influencing media content delivery and interaction. ‘Social media is fast becoming an integral part of entertainment. Those are key figures from the Social media Week, where we see that Nigeria has the largest tweets in Africa and the second largest Facebook access’.
Kola Oyeyemi in his speech, talked about the developmental process of discovering, nurturing, promoting and rewarding entertainment stars, using examples from MTN (Project Fame, The Headies, Football Academy) and NB PLC (Star Quest, Star Trek and Star Megajam).
‘For us at MTN we have this strategy which is like a pyramid in nature. At the base of it is what we call developmental. Find them, groom them, empower then and release them for to be given a platform. When you look at project fame and the football scholars are both developmental process’, Oyeyemi stated.
Keke Ogungbe of DAAR Group and Kennis Music spoke on the future of record labels while Amaka Igwe, the respected producer, director and writer delivered the speech ‘Nollywood paradigm: reflections from an unapologetic commercial Nollywood filmmaker’.
Ogungbe in his speech advised the many budding Nigerian talents to get educated first before venturing into the world of entertainment. ‘As a record label owner, my only advice is that budding talents should get good education first and foremost. Competitiveness is a function of core value and uniqueness’, Ogungbe noted
He also shows his disapproval of ‘one-hit wonders’, explaining that ‘great musical works is lyrics driven next to the voice quality’. ‘I am greatly worried with the present situation of one song stars. Why are we not able to replicate the great artistry, resourcefulness and the creativity of the King Sunny Ades, the Ebenezer Obeys, the Felas’, Ogungbe asked.
Amaka Igwe in her speech chastised the Nigerian Government for stifling the cinema culture in Nigeria in the past.
‘I just want to say it quickly that when Government decided to ban the cinema thing in Nigeria, they did more harm than good because people who encourage the banning were not able to fill up the gap, so the cinema culture died’.
The Conference was declared open by Frank Nweke Jnr, a former minister of Information and Culture, and the current DG of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group.
Each presentation was followed by panel discussions, focusing on key points from the speaker, as well as other other issues, as guided by moderators.
Full text of presentations from each of the sessions will be made available shortly.
