I am Omoni, and I represent Naija!
There’s a lot cooking right now in the kitchen of many production houses across the nation. I know many would be glad to see what the various producers have up their sleeve. There are all for your viewing delight, so get your taste for Nollywood heightened and go out there and purchase our movies as they appear on the shelves. I want to see them literarily flying off the shelves faster than they get there.
How else can we sustain this great industry of ours that we have built? We all have built it. By “we” I mean the moviemakers and the ‘paying’ fans of the industry. I emphasise on ‘paying’ because it is so easy to lavish your love with all your might and with just your mouth, but to demonstrate that love for us by actually going out there to purchase the products that we have is another thing entirely. We should begin to express that deep-rooted love for ourselves outwardly because we can’t see your feelings from where we are except it translates to sales for the movies we feature in.
Trust me, I know that some of our movies are not up to par with the production quality of many other movie industries of the world, but I doubt if we could ever achieve getting anywhere near where they are right now without our fans showing their commitment to us by buying our products. I also know that many of our movies can sometimes insult our intelligence, but do not throw away the baby with the bath water. There are many others out there who have devoted themselves to bringing you quality entertainment that soothes your sensibility. I know that many of our movies these days sometimes cause you to cringe at the poor execution of the storylines or the moral decadence of the stories infiltrating our homes, but I ask you to bear with us at this teething stage of our development.
I’m not in any way saying that you should be totally dogged in your followership of our productions. On the contrary, you should help to put the industry in check before it runs totally wild by demanding wholesomeness in our movies. Vices and values that we don’t tolerate shouldn’t be exposed in our movies. Some of us may enjoy them but the society will be the worse for it if we condone it. I’m not saying that you should turn a blind eye to the nuances of some movies on air or the occasional trashy materials we have seen on TV lately, but go out there and use your purchasing power to send a long, hard message to the makers of these movies that they can produce it, but we won’t buy it. Nothing corrects a man better than his being broke from an idea that he thought would bring him revenue. I’m not saying that you should accept terrible storylines, but search out those titles that you know or have heard that are good for your viewing pleasure. It encourages the producers to do more.
Like the strength of our votes, we can dictate the direction we want our movies to go in terms of morality and quality entertainment without killing creativity. This will encourage wholesome creativity that truly edifies us as a people. When we begin to crave our local content we will achieve what Hollywood and Bollywood have achieved, and that is local content with a global appeal. We will have the great market that many other industries in the world will envy us for – the massive Nigerian population.
I want to see a Nigerian movie industry that does not focus on the acceptance of the world for our movies, but is totally self sufficient with the massive returns on investment from just the Nigerian people. In this state, we the people of Nigeria would have developed a healthy taste for homemade movies that are homegrown too. We can look inward to the endless possibilities within us to do the impossible and dare the world to catch us if they can.
Many people will say that this is totally farfetched, but is it really? Are we of that view because we assume the next person would not be willing to adopt a new way of thinking that can bring those changes that can turn things around for us? Or are we just voicing our own personal inadequacies, hoping that others would concur and keep all of us on the same level that we are unwilling to grow out of? Can we stop the internal squabbles and grievances against our fellow Nigerians long enough to rise above the crab mentality that has held us bound since the independence of our great country?
My fellow Nigerians, we have circled this mountain long enough. Let us begin to make the right choices that would see us stay on the right path to the promised land of our dreams.
The bitterness hasn’t, and will not get us to our desired destination. Only steadfast love for ourselves and our neighbours can see us rise above the pettiness to become as great a people as we have always aspired to be. Let’s us not become the kind of people who never see the rose, but always focus on the thorns. Let us become the nation who can go through hell and high water, still holding their head up high and keep smiling!
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @omonioboli
SMS: 08053069212
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