Nollywood; The Achilles heel of Nigeria Economy -By Israel Dara Sobaloju

In recent times, money has been the basic reason why people join a particular profession, not minding their passion for it.

This is very rampant in the entertainment world, in Nigeria especially. The fame accredited to entertainers is worth it. But our entertainment world has done nothing for us in recent times that will can call “Value Added Services” , all they do most times is to entertain us(an aspect they have not being efficient in). This act is most common in Nigeria’s only movie industry: Nollywood, they have never performed up to my expectations.

Few weeks ago, I was walking down my busy street when I saw a very old friend of mine, wearing an outfit I saw an actress wore in a movie I watched recently.

“Wow, this outfit looks nice on you, have you watched this movie?” I asked. She replied “yes” anxiously, she concluded that it looks good on the actress that wore it in the movie and decided to get one for herself. I was amazed. To mention a few, the so called “Jenifa’s English”(a style of speaking English in a village manner, which Funke Akindele engaged in her TV series: Jenifa’s Diary) has indeed affected our community. I recently overheard people saying things like “wharever”, “How is you” and the likes. These are what they have learnt from the movie. A scientific analysis, made it know that, it is always easier for you to do what you’ve heard or seen through a TV set, than a verbal instruction. I thought knowing this should be an advantage to our consumption, but it’s now the Achilles heel of our movie industry.

Sometimes ago, I always wonder why the high rate of discrimination between the three major movie industries in the world (Nollywood, Hollywood, Bollywood). A friend of mine always complain about Nollywood movies, he often say that their storyline is bad and even the quality of the movie. (Nollywood the second largest movie industry in the world in terms of production, just behind Bollywood.) It’s pathetic that despite the high rate of production, the movie industry is dancing between fourth and third position of most lucrative movie industries in the world. This can be traced back to the bad quality of movies they produce, and the repelling storyline involved, which are in no way contributing to our society positively, but always aggravating our menace. Many Nigerians prefer watching Hollywood or Bollywood to Nollywood, because they find little or no satisfaction in the consummation.

Sequel to this, the problems facing the movie industry of which piracy is the greatest, is caused by the inability of the industry’s governing body to clean the industry of unworthy movies being churn out by them, basically because of profit making. In my opinion, I think one of the problem our government need to focus attention on, is the movie industry, because it is connected to the livelihoods of many Nigerians and even the economy. The media, in which Nollywood is a part ought to arouse the peoples understanding towards some cogent issues that has infested this nation from insurgency to our Dwindling economy. But they prefer to showcase movie that scares people, and even increase the burden on them. At this point, I will not hesitate mentioning names. The industry, for the past decades has found delight in adoring, elevating, hyping and decorating once existed idols and metaphysical powers, instead of degrading their power. Some years ago, the crooner of “Koto Aiye”, a popular Yoruba movie: Ajileye, died. Many begin to speculate that is death was caused by wizards and witchcrafts of this world, because of his great involvement in Metaphysical power related movies. Then have always imagined that if he was killed because of that, then the witches are stupid. I am not criticizing elevating our tradition, but they should do it in a civilised manner. All what they have done in the past has only created fear in people’s heart and thereafter they fall prey into the hands of false prophets who have mercilessly extorted them. Then our woes continues.

Some years ago, I watched a Yoruba movie which I bought due to the character showcased in the movie and how they were decorated on the movie’s cover, I started crying after spending 2 hours seeing it, because none of the artists and scenes serenaded on the cover featured in the movie. Then I wondered, when will our movie industry grow. Movies should be a means of foreign exchange, but in Nigeria it’s the opposite. I never expected it to be so for a movie not generally accepted by Nigerians, the primary consumer. In so doing, they are unable to pay back to the society.

Figurines(produced by Kunle Afolayan), a movie I so much loved due to the fact that it degraded the metaphysical powers, won the best movie produced in its year of production(2009), because of its educative storyline and the exploits of the casts. But I was amused when I was watching it recently, when I saw that the subtitle was not perfect. This is a common problem amidst our movie producers: subtitle problem, with a lot of misspellings, grammar error and bad interpretations, that makes me to imagine who did the subtitling. If they continue with this, it will not be acceptable to people who don’t understand our languages. But thanks to Kunle Afolayan and Funke Akindele, who has brought some noticeable changes into the movie industry with their recent movies October 1st and Jenifa’s Diary respectively. The subtitles are indeed commendable, a reason for their high number of foreign fans on the social media.

Some decades ago, during a time when peoples love for Agriculture was reducing, a movie was produced titled “Obalàgbè”. The movie amassed a lot of viewers both home and abroad even at the low level of civilization then. In the movie, Obalàgbè, a farmer, who invested his time and money in Agriculture became a very rich man who gives to the society. Months after its release it received a lot of commendations. Since then, it will always be a movie that has affected our Agricultural sector, in which all and sundry are now participants. But recently the story has changed, Nollywood prefer to produce a movie where armed robbery was showcased and the tricks to escape being caught. Sounds funny? Some years ago, when the handsome, Ekiti-born actor (Odunlade Adekola) broke into limelight, I was an ardent fan of his movies. But recently he has disappointed me and most Nigerians by his awful decision of producing “only” armed robbery inclined movies e.g Múfú Olosa Oko, Oyènúsì, àlàní Pamolékún, Babatunde Ishola, to mention a few. Movies that makes you imagine he’s an expatriate in armed robbery. No more moral lessons in his movies again, a bad decision I hope he change.

At this point in time our scriptwriters and movie producers must change their ways, by producing quality movies and writing educative scripts. Sometimes, they should come up with movies that talks about Voting, insurgency, Fuel subsidy removal and even political propaganda. This will help we citizens to have versed understanding of our community and also creating a room for sponsorship in the industry. Instead of showcasing sexual explicits and unnecessary traditional superstitions, they should promote technology, Agriculture, Love and the likes. By so doing they will up their game and make it more acceptable to us viewers, rather than using half an hour for advertisement in an hour movie. At this crucial point our nation is, the media is the greatest asset we can use to fight peoples ignorance towards the government policies and the fast changing world.

Israel Dara Sobaloju
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