Focus Nigeria
people, so it is perfect. The appeal is worldwide. Where you have people of African descent, they love this stuff” – Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s finance minister
D
uring a visit to the South American country of Belize, whilst the managing director of the World Bank, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala would have assumed that anyone coming up to her was intending to engage her on the global economic climate and its effect on growth in the developing world.
But no. “People stopped me on the street and said, ‘Are you Nigerian? We love your movies’,” Okonjo-Iweala revealed recently. With a reputed turnover of 40 film productions a week and reported sales of $250m per annum, the Nigerian film industry, with very little encouragement from the government, has become one of the country’s main non-oil foreign exchange earners.
“They employ our young people, so it is perfect. The appeal is worldwide. Where you have people of African descent they love this stuff,” Okonjo-Iweala observed. “The thing is not [for the government] to interfere – it has grown on its own. To help it improve, two things are needed. Improvement in quality – that takes building capacity and having access to finance. Second is
intellectual property. We need to regulate this, because part of the problem is they are not realising value because things are copied (pirated).”
Now that Okonjo-Iweala has
returned to Nigeria, at the behest of President Goodluck Jonathan, to again take up the job of finance minister (which she also held under President Olusegun Obasanjo), the creative industry expects to get real and meaningful support from her office. Okonjo-Iweala is also in full charge of the economic management team, which has caused many to give her the unofficial title of “Prime Minister”.
Just before the 2011 presidential election, President
“Nollywood employs our young
Jim Iyke and (right) Omotola Jalade Ekeinde
82 | October 2011 | New African
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100