Iyin Aboyeji, the co-founder of investment platform Future Africa, has expressed dismay at the fact that most of the infrastructure for Nollywood is located in Lagos.
The serial founder and entrepreneur made his feelings known during an intense panel session at NECLive8, the biggest gathering of Nigerian entertainment practitioners, which was held today.
“We can now create art with millions of dollars without having a patron, however, we have an industry responsibility to lower the barriers,” said Aboyeji. “We need to build more infrastructure. How do we organise the production & discovery of this art? There’s no need for me to fly a crew to Calabar, there should be a crew in Calabar. There’s no reason all the infrastructure in our movie industry should be in Lagos. We’re not just telling Lagos stories.”
Aboyeji, who has co-founded successful startups like Flutterwave and Andela, also stressed the need for Nigerians to build their own platforms if they were to be taken more seriously in global conversations.
“One of the things that disgust me is when I have to pay Zuckerberg to watch my brother”, said Aboyeji. “We need to come together to build platforms. What is Twitter without us? What is Instagram without our funny comedians? What is Spotify without our artists? We have an imperative to build our own, for us, by us. For the first time, the world is fully evenly distributed.”
