Who Says Nollywood Films Are Responsible For The Increasing Rate Of Ritual Killings? -By Sandra Ijeoma Okoye

It is no more news that some few weeks ago that the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, inadvertently or decorously said that most of the recent ritual killings for money-making were influenced by some Nollywood films watched by suspected perpetrators. He made the unsubstantiated statement during a media visit to the Daily Trust office in Abuja.

Making reference to some of the confessions of the ritual killers who attributed their actions to what they watched in Nollywood movies and social media, Mohammed stated that the Federal Government was on a mission to regulate the social media platforms and Nollywood industry.

He said, “Many have also blamed Nollywood for featuring money rituals in some of its movies, saying this has negatively influenced the vulnerable youth. To mitigate this, I have directed the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), the body set up to regulate the film and video industry in Nigeria, to take this issue into consideration while performing its role of censoring and classifying films and videos.

“I have also directed NFVCB to engage with stakeholders in the film industry in order to express the concerns of the government and Nigerians on the need to eschew money ritual content in their movies.

“For those who may still be in doubt, ritual killings have assumed a worrisome dimension in recent years. Recently, in Ogun State, four young men, one of whom is 18 years old, murdered their 20-year-old female friend for money rituals.

“The fact that some of these ritualists said they learnt the money-making tricks from some social media platforms has given a further fillip to our campaign to rid social media of unwholesome content”

Also appealing to religious bodies, he said, “The religious bodies should stop preaching only prosperity; you should be preaching morality more than the way you preach prosperity.

“Nollywood actors and the movie censors board have a lot to do to regulate the type of films they produce because some of them (ritual suspects) learn it in movies”.

As an actress that has starred in a couple of Nollywood movies, permit me to ask the minister, Lai Mohammed, “Why put the b lame on Nollywood films, and by extension producers, marketers, actors and actresses?” Again, for Lai Mohammed to literarily swallow hook, line and sinker the dubious confessions of suspected ritual killers who told him that they somewhat became possessed after watching Nollywood films that bother on Ritual killing is extremely difficult to grasp. It appears the minister has not come across the following quote, “All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.” The foregoing quote is inherent in Antigone, a play written by Sophocles. The quote explains the fact that criminals will always blame the devils or the circumstances they faced which to a large extent pushed them into the world of crime. Why efforts to blame Nollywood films for increasing cases of ritual killings across the land remains debatable, it is logical to think that the films watched in this part of the land are not as negatively infectious as action films that are by each passing hour watched in America, and other developed countries, still we’ve not heard that they kill themselves on the streets at the slightest provocation.

As a stakeholder in the Nollywood sector of the Nigerian entertainment industry, by virtue of being a thespian, it would not be out of place for me to say that the fine art of making others responsible for all the difficult things that happen to us is something our modern society seems to support as perfectly acceptable. Reality TV shows force feed us with scenes of one character blaming another, and newspapers are awash with stories about how all of society’s problems are to be blamed on politicians or terrorists and there is nothing we can do. But is our culture of blame helpful?

Against the foregoing argument, it is not a misnomer to say that Psychology talks about the ‘self-serving bias’, with researchers discovering that many of us will take the credit for ourselves if things go good in life, but lay blame on circumstance when things go bad. For example, imagine taking a driver’s test. If you just pass, then you will likely make it an internal reason, “I studied hard, I’m actually a good driver naturally”.

But if you just failed the same test, suddenly there is an external reason, “the weather was bad, it wasn’t the car I usually drive, I didn’t get enough sleep. But blaming circumstance is one thing.

Blaming people, especially those close to us, when things don’t go well is another. There is no doubt that resorting to blame game can have a severely damaging effect on our relationships, families, and career. Why do we blame other people? So why do it? One of the answers to the foregoing cannot be farfetched as blaming others is easy.

It is not an exaggeration to say that it is not only this writer that is condemning the blame game started by the minister based on what he said he was told. Nollywood actor, Yul Edochie has also played down on the opinion that Nollywood movies are the causes of incessant ritual killings in the country.

The actor and son of a legend, Pete Edochie bare his mind through Instagram while reacting to a call by the House of Representative to declare a state of Emergency over ritual killings in the country.

Yul said the reason for the rise of ritual killings is due to the high level of hunger and poverty faced by Nigerians, and then urged the government to find a lasting solution to the suffering of the people.

Yul said: “From when I was a kid in the eighties, I started hearing about ritual killings in Nigeria. There was no Nollywood. Hunger and poverty make people to do crime. No be Nollywood cause am, Nollywood is only showing what happens in the society”.

Going further, Yul stated: “Nigerians are wallowing in extreme poverty. A hungry man is an angry man. Fix the country and crime will go away, don’t blame Nollywood.

In the same vein, Veteran filmmaker, Fidelis Duker, has countered the notion on social media that Nollywood movies are responsible for the recent upsurge in ritual killings in the country.

Duker, who is also the Executive Director of the Abuja International Film Festival, said “I think to a large extent, I differ. In recent times, the generation of Nigerians involved in ritual killings are within the age bracket of 17and 26. Most of them did not watch those kinds of films. Most of the ritual films were produced about 10 and 15 years ago. What I am saying in essence is that Nollywood films cannot be blamed for the increase in ritual killings in the country. In films, even those who engaged in ritual killings usually ended up paying the price for it.”

Duker also blamed the dearth of moral values as one of the reasons for the malaise. He said, “In a recent Facebook post, I said one of the causes is that we have lost our moral values. A child of 17 years old would bring a new car home and the mother would be celebrating it. What work has he done at 17? A girl in year one in a tertiary institution would be using an IPhone of about N500, 000, and one begins to wonder where she got the money from? Those are the issues we should look at. We should not look for an escape route and blame Nollywood films (for all these ills).”

Given the foregoing, it is expedient to ask, it is germane to ask, “Who Says Nollywood Films Are Responsible for the Increasing Rate of Ritual Killings?