By Gbenga Opebi
Congratulations on your assumption of office as Nigeria’s fifth democratically-elected President.
Now that you have taken over the leadership of the world’s most populous black nation, please take time to ponder on the suggestions below on how to effectively steer the ship of state, considering the nation’s present state of affairs.
Your deputy, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, not too long ago, revealed that Nigeria is neck deep in debt, owing over $60 billion in external debts. He added that your then incoming administration was going to inherit the worst financial situation in the history of the nation.
At the about N200 current exchange rate, the $60bn debt amounts to about N12 trillion, which financial sources claim would take the country about 228 years to repay at N5billion per year.
Not only that, one of Nigeria’s major dailies also recently reported that the country is indebted internally to the tune of $3trillion. With this huge burden, it is important that your regime beams its searchlight on other areas of the nation’s economy for solutions and a necessary headway.
Truly, you have indicated your regime’s desire to break Nigeria’s reliance on crude oil by diversifying into the agricultural and mining sectors to generate more revenue for the nation and create employment. This is a laudable decision which all well-meaning Nigerians should support, more especially as oil prices have continued its downward tumble since the last quarter of 2014.
Oil now sells for about $67 with no hope in sight that it would appreciate soon. In addition to opening up the agric and mining sectors as promised, you need to do more to shore up the almost comatose economy.
Among others, it will do the nation a world of good to look the way of entertainment industry in this regard.
Nigeria’s entertainment sector currently employs several thousands of people, both directly and indirectly. These include actors, musicians, producers, directors and others whose livelihood is dependent on the sector.
The world over, entertainment has become a reliant source of revenue generation for nations and governments, who rake in billions of dollars per year from showbiz.
It is a money-spinning sector that should not be left for any governor like Your Excellency insinuated during your campaign. In fact, it may not be out of place to suggest a ministry is set up because of enormity of potential on the entertainment scene.
India became popular through her film industry, which dates back to several decades. Through the film industry, known as Bollywood, the nation has become a tourist destination, raking in billions of dollars annually from different activities.
Same way Hollywood has played a significant role for the American economy, let alone focusing on how it has helped shore up the nation’s image.
Sir, by investing in the entertainment sector, your government may not need any image laundering as the practitioners come very handy in this regard. And the funding I am talking about here is creating an enabling environment for the industry to thrive, and not necessarily doling money out to the practitioners.
Presently, producers and actors premiere their movies in 5-Star hotels and cinema houses, paying as much as N500,000 and millions of Naira in some cases just to introduce their films to the audience. Whereas, the National Arts Theatre in Lagos, built by the regime of Olusegun Obasanjo as a military Head of state, lie in waste and something close to utter abandonment.
I suggest that the edifice be put in proper shape and given out to practitioners at affordable cost. Not only that, your administration can also consider building film villages across the federation, where practitioners can easily take their films for premieres in a way that allows for profit sharing that can be worked out.
One other way of growing the sector is to confront the issue of piracy head on which has become a cankerworm threatening the very existence of the industry. It has driven many of the practitioners out of business, and some to their early graves.
Fighting the menace will save the sector from premature death, protect the intellectual property of the practitioners, strengthen the economy and create more employment opportunities.
Truly, there are enough statutory laws against piracy but implementation has been the undoing of intellectual property owners. Rather than abate, the pirates have become so daring they display the pirated products in daylight and the market place.
The pirates even announce to film makers that they would be releasing their films on specific days and do just that. A case in point is Kunle Afolayan’s October 1. So daring were the pirates that they told Kunle in advance the date the pirated copies would be released into the market. Kunle cried out to security operatives and tried to prevent the occurrence on his own, all to no avail.
But were the pirates dissuaded? No. The film was released as threatened while the security agencies look the other way. Frustrated Kunle is now licking his wounds in silence while the criminals smile to the bank.
Your predecessor injected some money into the sector, but his gesture ended in-fighting among the practitioners, some of who saw the largesse as an opportunity to make quick money rather than truly putting structures in place and helping the industry to grow.
So, sir, please look the way of entertainment in your bid to boost the nation’s economy.
