A look into the Nigerian Entertainment industry

By Yemi Olakitan The huge potentials in Nigerian entrainment sector are no news to many people all over the world; the opportunities for growth and economic prosperity are enormous. From the music industry, to the movie sector and even in the comedy scene, Nigerian entertainment offers opportunities for unlimited wealth, job creation, investments and poverty eradication. It has been described as a goldmine that has not been fully tapped by the Federal Government. With little government support and poor infrastructure in Nigeria, the Nigerian creative artistes have been able to create a very dynamic industry and the prospects for expansion is immense. In the music scene, Nigerian music is well known all over the world. Artistes such as Fela Anikulapo Kuti, King Sunny Ade, and Ebenezer Obey have exported Nigeria music far and near the developed nations. Today, particularly in Hip Pop music, Nigerian artistes are breaking new international frontiers. They are entering new collaborations with global superstars for example; D’banj and Kanye West are in alliance, Psquare recently released a video with Akon, 2 Face and R.Kelly are also reportedly working together. Not too long ago, Fela was on Broadway. The play ‘Fela’ is still being performed in theatres all over the United States. Our artists are daily gaining popularity in Europe and the America and our movies are been shown in every corner of the world. Asa has gained national prominence in France and she is considered as one of the finest musical acts in that country, not to mention Sade Adu, Ceel and many others. The release of the movie Ije directed by Chineze Anyene saw Nigerian movies wining prizes in film festivals around the world. The success of Figurine is another example of Nigeria’s success in the entertainment world. Figurine, the movie was reported to have generated over 12 million naira in box office revenue with major reviews in international media. Nigerian movies and artistes are increasingly becoming popular around the world. It has been said that Nollywood releases more movies in a year than both Bollywood and Hollywood combined. The industry is rated as the number 3rd in global film making after the American and the Indian movie sectors. According to a UNESCO report, the Nigerian movie industry has overtaken Hollywood and closed the gap on Indian to be the global leader in the number of movies released each year. It is the third largest movie industry in the world. The movie industry in Nigeria creates jobs for about 200,000 Nigerians and provides up to I million indirect jobs for Nigerians. The entertainment industry in Nigeria holds huge promise of millions of fortune for possible foreign investments for the benefit of the Nigerian people and yet many problems limit its advancement. It seems that in the coming generation of the world will have to look up to Nigeria as the next haven of the creative and entertainment enadeavour. It is clearly evident that our industry is among the most dynamic in the world today with growth potentials that we cannot adequately enumerate as at yet. However, as lucrative as the sector may look, it still has many challenges that hold it back and these challenges may scuttle any roughrider investor who does not take calculated steps before stepping into the sector. Some of them are the lack of copyrights, intellectual property rights, a loose and uncoordinated market system, an undefined distribution channel, poor government support and lack of infrastructure. These are some of the problems that confront the entertainment sector in Nigeria. In a chat with iconic King Sunny Ade, he said that piracy remained one of the hardest problems in Nigerian entertainment. He mentioned that this was responsible for the disappearance of foreign record companies such EMI and Decca from the Nigerian music scene. According to him, this record companies could not cope with high level of piracy in Nigeria and the government inability to reduce piracy in Nigerian creative industries. Speaking further, KSA consider piracy as one of the reasons why people do not want to invest money into entertainment and why foreign investment continues to elude Nigeria in that sector. ‘‘Nigeria only has record labels and not record companies and this does not help the sector. We need record companies and not labels. Record companies take care of the album from the studio to distribution, to media and promotion. They ensure that the artistes get their royalties. Today, we no longer have that. All we have are individuals trying to do it by themselves.’’ ‘‘I released an album tagged the Grace of God by 28th of December, but it was already all over the streets by 24th of December. The pirates flooded the market with their own products. My fans invite me and pay for my performance, that is why I am still on the scene otherwise pirates are having a filled day.’’ Legendary actress, jokes Silva also pointed out that one reason why Hollywood is ahead of Nollywood is that Hollywood has so many structures that are not available to us here in Nigeria. For instance, when they release a movie, it goes to about 3,000 cinemas simultaneously. We cannot do that yet. Our distribution system at the moment is so informal that it is difficult for any serious investor to take us serious. At the moment, how many cinema screens do we have? Lets say Silverbird has about six, the palms has about six, may be about 20 all over the country compared to thousands that other industries such as Hollywood or the Indian Bollywood have. If you take video as our first window of opportunity and our distribution system is so porous, then pirates will have a filled day. So, until we have a well-regulated, worldwide distribution network, we will remain number 3rd. Speaking further, she said that epileptic electricity supply in the country is a major problem in Nollywood. ‘ The producers usually brings a generator along in order to shoot a scene and he will position it far away so that its noise does not interfere with the recording. However, the neighbours also do not have lights and they are also on generators and they are not part of your production team. You cannot go and meet them and say, please can you turn off your generators because I am shooting a movie. It does not concern them. We need dedicated studios and zones where we can shoot our movies without that kind of limitations.’’ She said. Even comedians complain about piracy. Their CDs are massively pirated and distributed without gains for their pockets. In a chat with ace comedian Julius Agwu, he said, piracy is the first problem of the industry. He lamented that new comedians are coming out everywhere and they use your jokes. I work hard to get my jokes, I am in my observatory tower, in my toilet, bedroom, kitchen and I observe what is going on and I create my jokes.’’ He said. It is very encouraging that the federal Government under President Goodluck Jonathan in response to these problems released US$200 million as the Entertainment industry Fund. Many artistes have however, complained about their inability to access the fund.