Creating a market out of the void, the Nollywood exampleBy Okoh Aihe
Published: November 19, 2006
Print It is a great pleasure to be here today and I am immensely grateful for being given an opportunity to ventilate my thoughts on the movie industry in our continent. But before continuing, let me pay a deserved tribute to the organisers of this festival and the workshop which, for me, is one of the most significant aspects of this programme. The sponsors too deserve a word of appreciation and encouragement so that in the future they can put in more money that can give us better a programme.
On a more serious note, I think the other important reason for this kind of forum is that it has provided a concentrated opportunity for us to see images about ourselves. This is usually taken for granted but, oftentimes, we do not have the opportunity to see ourselves and when we do, there is usually a celebration. And this is where my paper will derive from but bearing in mind that in future we should have more opportunities to see ourselves on the screen and dialogue about the way we want to continue to be seen and through what medium.
The success of any movie industry derives from the expedient need for people to see their images on screen. Hollywood talks about America. Bollywood talks about Indian. The Chinese Kungfu films talk about the people. And when the Japanese launched their High Definition Television in Cannes in the year 2000, they showed Japanese images which were enhanced by unbelievable technology. This is the reason that the attention currently being enjoyed by Nigeria’s Nollywood is not strange but a success that was bound to happen from day one. Nollywood is a success because it is giving opportunity for people to see their stories on screen.
Having said this I would like to tell the story of Nollywood and give it African back- grounding and also try to explain why happenings in Nollywood should serve as very instructive lessons to movie or programme makers in the continent.
The dated time for Nollywood is 1992. Before this time however, the state of the Nigerian movie industry couldn’t be different from what was happening in most other countries of Africa. The government had taken decisions that affected those who showed foreign films. Added to this was the weight of a collapsing economy. The final nail in the coffin was the attitude of the Nigerian Television Station, NTA that resorted to showing cheap foreign films.
Before 1992, popular soaps on NTA like Village Headmaster, Cockrow at Dawn, Mirror in the Sun, Checkmate, Ripples and a host of others had died out one after the other, replaced unfortunately by foreign programmes of lower quality. This did not only deny Nigerians the opportunity to see their stories but also removed bread from those who laboured to bring these stories to people’s homes.
For years, there was a vacuum, there was a need and there was an opportunity but nobody say them.
Opportunities can become gold in the hands of those who saw them first. Although it is generally accepted that the birth of Nollywood was a mercantile decision, that decision was only taken in 1992 by a trader of very modest background who saw opportunities in the elegy of the country’s movie industry and the shameful development at the only television house.
Let me quickly add here that broadcasting was not deregulated in Nigeria until 1992. Although at the last count Nigeria has about 285 broadcast stations comprising of Cable and Satellite TV stations, TV and Radio Stations, and Digital Satellite TV Stations, that history did not also begin until 1992.
The theme of the workshop is competition between Private and Public TV Broadcasters and Production Opportunities, although I have slightly amended my paper to read, Creating a market out of the Void, the Nollywood Example. I know most of us will be interested in this topic but were we to go through a time machine to the period before 1992, most of us here or let me even say the Nigerians wouldn’t understand the topic because there was no competition. There was only one lion in the jungle of entertainment. That lion was the NTA.
Let’s return to the story of the man who saw the opportunity that could meet a need. His vision was simple. With the dearth of popular genres of entertainment, shoot a good story straight on video and push it into the market through the VHS cassettes, there would be enough buyers to give one a business. But what he didn’t know was that there were so many buyers that he could not cope with the demands of the market.
That gentleman never talked about the cost of that project but we know the scope of the industry which that project has created. With about 3, 000 films pouring into the market, the industry is estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. It is a big industry which employs thousands of young men and women that may still have been roaming the streets in search of jobs that could put something on their table daily. The industry has created a market with some of the best returns in the world.
Nollywood is in the eyes of the world. Nollywood is in the eye of the international media which would not just understand what makes the industry to be in a swing. They came from distant lands to write down another idea by an African country that will sooner flop or implode but like the Biblical Balaam they ended up serenading new phenomenon that will create possibilities to the entire world. Their fixations evaporated right on their face. Name them – CNN, BBC, MNET’s Carte Blanche, TV Arte, VOA, The New York Times, The Times of London, Newsweek, Washington Post, and a host of others too numerous to list here.
Page 1 of 2 | Next Page »