The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has tasked stakeholders in the nation’s movie industry to fashion out a structured system of distribution that will guarantee return on investment and protect Nigerians from exposure to unwholesome products.

The minister made the call in Lagos, yesterday, while declaring open a stakeholders’ meeting on the National Enhanced Exhibition and Distribution System.

“There is a compelling and urgent need to properly structure the movie industry, both as an enterprise and a cultural product, beyond the seemingly unwieldy situation that exposes the sector to unwholesome activities detrimental to the nation. The movie industry as a major component of our nation’s creative industry is strategic to the broad national plan agenda, with tremendous capacity for wealth creation through jobs and incomes for our people,” he said.

Lai Mohammed

Alhaji Mohammed said the aim of enacting a structured system of distribution is to provide guides, safeguards, and benchmarks for players through regulatory practices or frameworks, which can invariably result in performance tracking and data availability to ascertain market depth of the distributive and exhibition sub-sector.

He acknowledged the marginal successes made by players in the sub-sector, but noted that the gains are short-circuited by visible distortions that make quackery thrive, thus depriving the nation of the tremendous contribution that otherwise should have been possible.

The minister stressed that the unacceptable gap in the distribution and exhibition of films and videos must be addressed, and underscored the need to reform the movie industry in such a way that obscenity and violence are cautiously moderated in Nigerian films.