THE N3BN GRANT TO NOLLYWOOD

President Goodluck Jonathan recently announced a N3bn grant toNollywood, a second windfall in two years. Nollywood has never had it so good. When Jonathan was running for the Presidency, he promised a whopping $200m as intervention fund saying the money would support and develop the industry. Around that time, there was also the World Bank $30m funding. Not only those, issues around Nollywood have enjoyed considerable attention, possibly more than any art sector. Their visibility is rivalled perhaps only by the music (read: Hip Hop) industry. The good luck (pun unintended) of both Nollywood and music industries lie in their nature. As popular culture art, they create spectacles in a way others cannot and so enjoy mass patronage. They also get solicitations from politicians. Jonathan’s benefaction is therefore understandable. On the same occasion where the President made his promise, the latest Santa-Claus-minus-costume in town, Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, in the usual Nigerian politician’s bend-over-backwards-and-kiss-the-“Oga-at-the-top”’s-behind, quickly instituted a N50m prize for Nollywood in Jonathan’s name. He did it without recourse to procedures; Akpabio has been very generous recently anyway, buying himself public opprobrium here and there. But both he and Jonathan forget their offices are limited-term and their successors will not be bound to sustain their superficial charity. And that is not the only problem with their generosity. A bigger setback is that it will not as much as address the nagging problems of Nollywood. The $200m promise, filmmakers complain, had been inaccessible due to bureaucracy. They say the money is like the curse of Tantalus; it taunts them with its elusiveness. This N3bn might not be different.

Beyond the inaccessibility of funds from the President’s bounty, however, is the issue of the lack of a well-articulated art policy. Rather than Nigeria create a comprehensive plan that can restructure the artscape, what we have is the occasional Sugar Daddyism that makes no effort to understand the problem, but struggles to solve it all the same by throwing raw cash at it. What will solve, or at least alleviate the problems of Nollywoodcannot be divorced from a larger systemic plan; one that will altogether restructure the arts industry. Nigeria needs to generate a document for her arts sector that will highlight how the country intends to use the art to build a better society, make money and even export our cultural values. And a policy is necessary because it is likely to be coordinated and sustainable.

It is actually cheap to shower Nollywood with money and get favourable press mention for it while other parts of the art sector like visual art, writing and publishing, performances, technological art are ignored. Every sector of the art needs as much support as Nollywood. The occasional handouts to Nollywood might do some good; it might enable filmmakers to go abroad to shop for experts for the technical aspects of their work, but in the long run will do little for capacity building at home. The film industry, no matter how well-funded, cannot be an island. It needs other arts professionals such as costume designers, musicians, technicians, researchers, editors, historians, visual artists, graphic artists, animators, technologists, set designers, critics, among others to make more sensible films. And all these people need to be continually trained. And training takes money and time. And that is why Nigeria should be prepared to give grants (not merely loans) to these artists to enhance their capabilities. There is incredible artistic talent in Nigeria but certain things artists need to grow — exposure, time away from producing humdrum art, and rigorous retraining — are mostly lacking.

If there is a sector that is conterminous with Nollywood but quite easily forgotten, it is the live theatre.Nollywood’s genealogy cannot be complete without acknowledging live theatre but it does not enjoy as much patronage from the state. When Jonathan spoke about what Nollywood can contribute to nation-building, he did not extend his expectations to it. One might argue that live theatre is disadvantaged by its own largely elitist nature but no serious government can afford not to factor it into consideration.

Other contributing factors to the problems of the arts in Nigeria include those of the audience and arts appreciation. Months ago, I wrote a piece on Nollywood and the feedback I received from some readers is that it will be hard for Nigeria to rise beyond the level of banausic art because our society is largely bereft of a certain level of aesthetic taste required to either enjoy or even demand a higher level of innovative art. Those readers responded that way because most public schools don’t even teach art subjects, and private schools don’t always make such a priority. There is no major kiln where artistic imagination is being fired up. And it is true, many of us went to schools where art is seen as a fallback discipline for those who are too intellectually deficient to be in the sciences or social sciences. This is one major area an arts policy will look into: cultivate a taste for the arts. It is important because no society can advance its status without it. It goes beyond maintaining a cultural troupe or running a museum staffed by obsolete civil servants.

Today, Hollywood is the US’s biggest cultural export. Research shows that even in the Middle East where Americans are hated, people watch Hollywood films! It is not by accident; the US made a major investment in its arts sector and used it to push their culture to the rest of the world. The result is that we are doped on their culture and it’s even too late to escape it. The least we can do is create a taste for our own culture elsewhere by investing in the arts sector. When Nigeria spends huge sums of money to invite the likes of Beyonce, Jay Z, and even a trash TV star like Kim Kardashian, we pay twice: First for the show, second for the US’s foresight. This must stop.

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