The ADC Presidential candidate Dumebi Kachikwu, urged the government to invest in the movie industry, saying the sector is critical for the survival of the Nigerian economy.
This was contained in a statement he signed for the triaannual summit of the Actors Guild of Nigeria.
Kachikwu revealed that he will make this a reality when he becomes the president come 2023.
According to him, the combined satelite assets of Nigcomsat and the nations terrestial spectrum could be used to create a hybrid national distribution platform for all digital content, expressing worry that these asset is currently idle.
”Nollywood doesn’t need tokenism. Nollywood needs the Nigerian government to take it as a sector critical to the survival of the Nigerian economy. This is what I would do as your president.
”I would use the combines satelite assests of Nigcomsat and our terrestrialspectrum to create a hybrid national distribution platform for all digital content. We already have this asset, and it is idle,” he said.
”The next step would be to provide decorders or set up boxes in every tv home in Nigeria that would connect to this platform. Each of these boxes would have a minimum of 2TB of hard disk to store a minimum of 600 standard difinition or 300 high definition movies.These boxes will also be used as transaction devices for other digital content such as music, e-books, games, etc,” he added.
According to him, government needed to invest this in order to have to control the pipes, and generate revenue by collecting taxes or TV licence fees direct from source.
The Presidential candidate expressed worry on the over 100 million poor Nigerians data recently made public by the National Bureau of Statics(NBS) , saying that Nigeria is at war on multiple fronts while leaders make incoherent statements.
”Ímagine a nation of thirty million decorders and as a content producer you release movies , and they are immediate;ly available to thirty million viewers. Lets assume that just 5% of these viewers purchase your movies at the cost of N100 on the day of release, you would have grossed N150m.
”This is how you help Nollywood. Imagine the other possibilities of advertising linear channels, and royalties over time. This is possible, I have touted this to the government but they would rather sell their spectrum to the likes of MTN and other foreign operators who take their profits outside of Nigeria than investing in a platform which has the potential of creating a trillion naira movie industry.
”When you earn good money from your films you can invest in better technology , better sets , costumes, etc When people see that there is potential in nollywood , then foreign investments will flow in because they know the content produced can be sold,” he stated.,
He noted further the need for Nollywood content producers to focus on distribution, regretting that producers still sell their content very cheap to pirates and other non-structured distribution channels.
”What is the point of producing content that wont be seen by tens of millions of Nigerians because there is no structured distribution? How many cameras do we have in Nigeria compared to the the viewing population.
”History beckons on us to tak our country in a different direction, we can no longer afford to have geriatrics who cant understand that our today destroy our tomorrow. For long we have been victims , we must now take our country back from ythem,” he stressed.
