The Film Fund Issue: Film Corporation SpeaksBy Emma Okezie Published: September 23, 2005  Print Disinformation can be worrisome. Misinformation again can even be worse. The obsession of Shaibu Husseini in The Guardian newspaper (August 25th, 2005) with the Film Fund is worrisome to the extent one begins to wonder what is Husseini's personal interest in the said fund. The hue and cry that had been raised (particularly by Shaibu Husseini, Re: The Guardian of January 06, 2005) over the N100 million secured by the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation in 2004 has given one cause to wonder, yes! Wonder why?
To begin with, the matter of film fund has been a campaign the Nigerian Film Corporation has taken up since 1997 and raised it to the federal executive council level. The NFC in 1997 commissioned KPMG to do a document which was then presented to the then Minister of Information, Mr. John Nwodo, Jnr. A N700 million seed money was requested for the take-off of the fund. Somehow, that was not to be. When the reins of governance changed hands and the millennium dictates of democracy came up, the need for the film fund became a song.
The coming of Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu to Radio House as the Honourable Minister of Information and National Orientation quickened action. Chikelu at a recent outing said: "When I asked the President that I needed money for the film industry, the President asked me, the 'Young Shall Grow how much do you need?' I said anything you can approve for us and the President said no problem, consider it done. That is how we were able to get the N100 million, which we used to impact on the industry,". Punch September 2, 2005 page 51.
But one is perplexed at the response so far shown about the disbursements. Yes, it is public fund. Yes, it was for the motion picture industry. Yes, the Minister had spoken about it several times. But why the doubt about how the money was disbursed. For the avoidance of doubt, Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu in an interview with Thisday Newspaper of Sunday, May 15 2005, page. 19 gave a detailed account of how the President approved the release of the fund and a summary of how the said money was disbursed. Relevant portions of the interview here reproduced.
Chikelu: There is nothing like a National Film Fund, it doesn't exist, what we have is my going to the President, making a case that the government needs to actively support the film industry and taking a decision that we must support the film industry and requesting the Ministry of Finance to make allocation in 2004. We had an allocation of N100m to the ministry for the film industry and the budget as you know was passed sometime in March/April 2004 and what we did as a ministry was to scientifically, we hope, determine that whatever we have as money to spend in the industry, we would designate some of it to production, some of it to technical development, some of them to festivals, not just putting everything to making films, to the other areas, some of it to seminars and it is from this fund that the ministry, going through all the due process has been able to do all the things that we did including supporting other film related events like the Best of Best television event (BOB TV), other seminars and other agencies, supporting the film corporation, supporting the film institute, supporting the various committees that worked on the streamlining of the activities of the two agencies (NFC / Censors Board) and also giving significant support to fresh productions by Nigerians. I think that if you go back to anyone of the people who feel that they have doubts, I am sure that they will have a different thing to tell you, but things have changed, it is no longer like before, what we have in government procedure, government transparency and due process is that monies cannot leave the government without them being traceable and having gone through due process, even if you approve it here, in addition to your transparency monitoring group, it still goes to due process and they have to check the process where it is going to, what it is going for and whether the money is in the budget and all this is done at different levels, including before a cheque is issued. Those days are simply gone and we have met with stakeholders and we have discussed all the various elements and we presented them with a full list of the things that have been done with the N100 million that we had, of which we have done significant things in upgrading our film institutes.
On our film corporation alone we spent N50 million on that, we supported so many other things that we've been able to achieve in the film industry from this and, for which we invited training institutions, including those that are not owned by government. The other training institutions that are privately owned we supported them because they are providing a very important service to the industry and this is what we hope to do again with any allocation in the 2005 budget and we have also made a very strong case for more resources to be able to continue with what we are doing. We hope that ultimately we will be able to transform the film institute into a first class training facility and to also continue in supporting several other film related activities.
Below is a sectoral summary of beneficiaries of the said N100 million:
(A) Productions (Documentaries)
Brickwall Communications
Amaka Igwe Studio
Nigerian Film Corporation
Enyi Productions
Yusuf Mohammed
Yakadi Communications Ltd
(b) Movie Stakeholders Retreat (MOVISTAC) 2004
(c) Film Festivals/Awards/Conferences
Sithengi Film Festival, Cape Town, South Africa 2004 (Nigeria's delegation)
FESPACO 2005 (Nigeria's delegation)
Bamako, Mali 2005 (Nigeria's delegation)
ZUMA Film Festival (NFC), 2006 (on-going project)
BOB TV 2005
MOPPAN Awards 2005
Training/Capacity Building
National Film Institute, Jos
National Film Video Sound Archive, Jos
ITPAN Training School, Lagos
PEFTI, Oshodi, Lagos.
From the foregoing, it was not a windfall that government gave. Neither was it the fabled "National Cake" to be shared by all and sundry. All the above named beneficiaries applied and got the funds for their different projects. Even then, Shaibu Husseini's claim that "till date the Practitioners still beg for an explanation of what has become of that windfall" smacks of bad taste. Who did Husseini consult to clarify his claims - did he speak with Chief Chukwuemeka Chikelu as his colleagues had done or officials of Nigerian Film Corporation and not get answers if he indeed raised any on the matter of the N100 million disbursements? Who are the nameless and faceless practitioners? Those whose applications failed and did not get a kobo, or those who did not apply at all, but felt left out? Both bad and sore losers. The facts here presented indicate that we have no film fund. Not yet. But modalities for the setting up of the film fund had been presented by the NFC to both Chief Chikelu and his successor, Mr. Frank Nweke, Jnr. In addition, NFC has requested for a film grant to take care of non-commercial productions, training and capacity building, etc. For the avoidance of doubt, the film fund, when finally in place, will be run totally as a commercial venture. It will be a polling of funds from government, stakeholders and corporate Nigeria. Subscribers to the Fund will determine its management structure, not the government. -Okezie, is Head, Public Affairs, Nigerian Film Corporation |
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