Nigeria, April 13, 2016 – Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Tuesday inaugurated a Ministerial Review Committee for the Motion Picture Council of Nigeria (MOPICON), in an effort to fast track the passage into law of the MOPICON bill.
The 29 member committee is chaired by Ms Peace Anyiam Osigwe with a task to build on past efforts, dating back to the early 1990s, when Nigerian Motion Picture Practitioners under various bodies craved for the Council to engender sustainable growth of the industry based on best practices as well as practitioner’s protection and structured membership.
The committee is made up of representatives of the various guilds, associations, as well as the Nigerian Film Corporation(NFC), National Film and Video Censors Board(NFVCB), the Ministry of Information and Culture as well as Nigeria Copyright Commission(NCC).
While inaugurating the committee, the Minister said government is setting up the council to enable Nollywood to play a meaningful role in national development and not to control it.
”One of the ways we think we can tackle frontally the many challenges militating against professional and career fulfillment in the movie industry is to have a central body we can always refer to in decisions aimed at improving and modernizing the motion picture industry.
”Also, government’s interest in the setting up of MOPICON is driven by the fact that we at the supervising ministry need to work with a formidable representative group that is empanelled to lobby for the growth, development and welfare of the industry and its practitioners as well as make for a better organized and more visible and vibrant Nollywood industry. We have no hidden agenda and we will not be part of anything that will stifle the growth of the burgeoning industry,” he said.
The first Steering Committee for the Practitioners Council was set up on April 4th 2005, made up of 17-members with Chief Tunde Oloyede as head. This was followed by the setting up, in April 2015, of an Advisory Interim Council to commence activities leading to the actualization of the take-off of MOPICON. Unfortunately, paucity of funds prevented the inauguration of the Interim Council.
”We are not here to reinvent the wheel but to build on the good efforts of those who toiled hard in the past to set up MOPICON,” he said.
The Minister solicited the support of the stakeholders to enable him achieve his plans for the industry, which include a stepped-up battle against piracy, the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts and the need to reverse the lack of policy direction in the movie industry.
He gave the committee three weeks to conclude its assignment and submit its report.
