Nollywood: Witches, rituals send negative messages – Aiyegbusi

Kayode Aiyegbusi, Head, Performing Arts Department of Cyprian Ekwensi Centre for Arts and Culture, believes Nollywood films are sending both positive and negative messages to the viewers.

“I have been fortunate to be outside this country, where people were talking about Nigerian movies.

“The impression is that all our movies are targeted at witches, nudity, bad mothers-in-law, 419, rituals, money rituals and all sorts of negative things,” he said.

He said the movie industry is one that can break all kinds of barriers with the different messages in the films such as race, insecurity, and religion, among others.

Aiyegbusi said that the industry had not been doing enough in sending the right messages on issues that affected the society.

He urged movie producers to produce movies that would reflect the good of the country and not to further give it a degrading image.

Globally, Nollywood has achieved a significant feat. It is the the second largest film industry in the world in number of annual film productions, placing it ahead of the United States (Hollywood) and behind India’s (Bollywood).

Moving forward, stakeholders in the movie industry on Wednesday in Abuja expressed different shades of opinion on the impact of the industry.

Some of the stakeholders who spoke to NAN stressed both the pros and cons of Nollywood films in Nigeria.

Gabriel Enwerem, a teacher at Nurl Bayan International Academy, Wuse, Zone 5 Abuja, said that movies were being produced to entertain the audience.

Enwerem, however, said that movies should be geared to entertain and educate the audience on issues happenings in the society.

Ifeyinwa Omowole, a journalist, described Nollywood as an industry which had gone very far and had achieved success in the branding, re-branding and shaping of Nigeria society.

She gave credence to Nollywood for projecting the Nigerian culture and image both at home and abroad, ranging from language to dressing and food.

She said Nigerian women were not portrayed decently in the movies; this was why some of them were dressing half-clad in the movie.

Bukola Adewumi, a civil servant, said the industry had not been producing movies with morals, rather it had promoted foreign culture and nudity in the name of fashion.

Adewumi called on government to impose sanctions on movies that promoted vices that tarnished the image of the country.

He suggested that government should ensure that movies were screened before releasing them for public consumption.

Hajia Sani, a civil servant, said that most Nollywood films highlighted vices in the society without proffering solutions to them.

“I am highly disappointed by lack of professionalism of the actors. There is more to acting than appearances.

“In the past, there were movies like Mirror in the Sun, Village Headmaster, Itchoku, Magana Jarice that were well written, very professional as the actors were screened and cast for their roles,” she said.

According to her, these are the lifeline for social broadcasting; families look forward to these programmes.

“We need to bring in more professionals to change the face of Nollywood and by extension, the face of Nigeria,” Sani said.