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By Paul Williams
With 2500 movies annually, Nollywood, Nigeria’s growing film industry, is currently rated the second biggest producer of films globally, behind America’s Hollywood.
According to IMF reports, the industry currently accounts for N 853.9 billion ($7.2 billion), or 1.42 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, and places second, behind agriculture, as the nation’s largest employer of labour.
In Rivers State, the successes of the entertainment industry are barely noticed, and according to practitioners, also barely appreciated.
Comedian and industry expert, KO Baba, in a chat with our reporter on the sidelines of AsabaKP Mindshift Summit (The CEO) in Port Harcourt, said the situation is not only lamentable, but highlights the urgent need for intervention by government and corporate bodies.
“We don’t have government involvement. We’ve not had the government in the region (Niger Delta) come to a roundtable and discuss the sector.”
He argued that the entertainment industry is the “highest employer of young people across the Niger Delta region.
“Also, overtime, we can beat our chest and say it is because of our power of initiative. Na we carry our hand discover our skill, begin dey do our thing small small. We are either musicians, comedians, dancers, DJs, some people in fashion and everything,” he said.
KO Baba stressed that governments are not doing enough, and “have not sat down to say ‘Look at this sector. Young people are taking initiative, how do we come in to simplify and amplify what they are doing.”
The entertainment sector, according to the IMF, has created over one million direct jobs, making it the second highest employer of labour behind agriculture, with millions of youths taken off the streets and into gainful employment.
For KO Baba, nowhere is this better appreciated in the country than in the Niger Delta, which had felt for years felt the negative impact of youth restiveness, kidnapping and other vices.
He however called on state governments in the region to invest in the entertainment industry. “Government should look at the sector and see how they can encourage capacity building, capital injection, offer credit facility and make available experience and events that can really help creators and entertainers in the Niger Delta.
“The region has enough resources that if the government and people in power can ask themselves how they can get involved, create platforms, policies and programmes, it (industry) will get better,” he said.
