Director-General of the National Film and Video Censors’ Board, NFVCB, Emeka Mba, recently played host to a group of Abuja-based reporters in his office. FEMI IPAYE was there. Excerpts:
Q: The new movie distribution and marketing framework you have been trying to sell to stakeholders in the industry is generating controversy. Did you not carry them along before you came up with the concept?
A: The law has been there before and that’s what we’ve been emphasising. The only thing that can be considered “new” is that there’s now going to be implementation of what had been in the law for a long time. And as any right thinking person should know, if you are going to issue a licence, it will come with conditions. But we don’t want those conditions to be set unilaterally by us. We want the conditions to be negotiated by the different stakeholders in the industry. So, we started the process in 2006. The dynamics of that industry created the success that we know today as the Nigerian film industry. But at the same time, the industry presents the biggest challenges in terms of the fact that anyone can become a film maker, anyone can distribute films. Anyone can come and go at any time. That’s a good thing. But as a regulatory agency, we regularly dish out instructions concerning film productions. And we need to ensure that there is someone that can be held responsible for implementation of decisions, because we’ve seen so many instances where people would come and ask you what about this and what about that. For example, if you were at the forum we had at the Press Centre in Abuja about a year ago, some of these issues came up there. People were asking why are you still allowing movies that have part 2, part 3, part 4? Movies that have no ending, no beginning, the issue of piracy, all those things. So, ultimately there is the need to freshen up the way our industry stands. At a certain point, we need to take stock and professionalise it - the content, the point of production and also the point of distribution and marketing. We have an industry that is prolific but doesn’t lend itself to best practices because of these issues. And we need to do something about it. We can’t keep operating as if we don’t know the right thing. You are a journalist, you often ask people how many films they have taken part in or sold and they can’t even give you accurate answers. That is a clear manifestation of the weakness of the system. People who are in the industry cannot even give account of movies to themselves, you know, like how many films are sold in Nigeria annually? I don’t know if you know, but I would like to know. How many video club operators are in Abuja? We need to know these numbers, how many people are movie marketers in Abuja? A group of people from the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, was in my office to do a survey. And they were asking me questions about certain issues. I was a bit embarrassed and said we are working on these issues. But we need to know, we can’t keep saying we are working on them; we need to be able to say that if you go to Abuja, there are 100 video clubs, there are 10 major distributors. If you go to Kano, if you go to Port Harcourt, if you go to Bayelsa, these are the people selling movies. If a film is censored in Lagos, who will be responsible for the distribution in Abuja? It is important. It is important not only from the point of view of the Censors’ Board, but to the industry and the owner of that film so that somebody will take responsibility. And it helps to deal with the issue of piracy.
So, you need to divide the country in such a way that some measure of responsibility will be taken by certain players in certain localities. Take Makurdi for example, if Living In Bondage is being distributed in Benue State by XYZ, the government needs to know, the marketer needs to know, the producer needs to know, the Copyright Commission needs to know. And we need to know others who are also selling the movie so that we can keep account. These are some of the things that we feel are important, not just from the point of view of ensuring that classification is obeyed but also to help check piracy and respect the rights of the owners. We have a lot of work to do, but one thing we’ve said consistently is that as an organisation, we are committed, no matter the threats. In fact, the killing of our staff has more than anything gingered us to know now that we are not going to take this thing for granted. We will work with the police to ensure that we get to the bottom of this particular issue. The head of our legal unit has spoken to the police and we have chronicled some of the issues.
In July, one of our staff was attacked in Yola when he accosted some people dealing in pornographic films. In fact, after attacking him, the seller went and called the police, complaining that our worker came to seize his pornographic films! Can you imagine that? The same thing happened in Ilorin, You know, all these cases are in the respective Magistrate courts in those areas. Then in August, our staff were attacked and seriously wounded in Kaduna. They were even held hostage in Makurdi and Oturkpo. It took the intervention of the police to save their lives because they were about to be lynched. Recently, another of our staff was attacked and stabbed in Suleja. So, it’s like they want to intimidate us and the only thing we have said to our staff is to be a bit more careful and we’ll make sure that we beef up security.
Q: What measures are you taking to ensure that this sad event is curbed?
A: We are making a very strong case to the Inspector-General of Police, not only to send a strong team of investigators to get to the bottom of this, but we are also strengthening our own investigative capacity, our surveillance team and also our own security to ensure that every time our men go out to the field, they go with enough police enforcement and support. We’ve known it and it has always been at the back of our minds that there are criminal elements in this industry. But the criminal elements now want to drown the forces of reason and we can’t let that happen. Just look at it, if you are in Lagos and you are driving, people will be showing you pornographic films inside your car! In front of school children! When you go to arrest them, they come out with knives and bottles. As the DG of Censors’ Board, I have told my staff that we cannot allow this in our society, we cannot sit back and let our youth grow up on this poison of horrible uncensored films and pornography, we are not going to sit back and look. So we honestly appeal to members of the public and especially to the Nigerian Police, though they are currently doing a good job, but I think there is always room for improvement. It’s almost like now we are in the centre of it, so we have to go around looking for police protection even in our personal homes because this man was shot in his home! They trailed him to his house and killed him.
Q: A major problem in the industry is how to enforce anti-piracy laws. Most of the time, if you take a pirate to the police station, he may even leave the place before you. So, how is the Censors’ Board cooperating with the other regulatory bodies in the industry to remedy this situation?
A: Clearly, as a Board, our job is not to combat piracy. But you see, because of the pervasiveness of piracy in our society, it is now next to impossible for us to even achieve our core mandate without doing something about piracy. One, piracy is robbing the film makers of revenue, so they are no longer willing to spend more money in making films, so it’s now becoming a problem for us as well. One of the two things we are doing is that we are working with the Copyrights Commission; we have set up a joint task force. Beyond that is the fact that we also need to promote through a lot more aggressive public awareness, the dangers and the ills of piracy. We also hope that with the collaboration we have with the Copyrights Commission, we can begin to see a lot more in terms of Special Courts and special investigations to deal with the issue of piracy because it is robbing Nigeria blind. The amount of money this industry could have realised, which will lead to creation of more jobs and employment of more people but is being sabotaged by piracy is unimaginable. Today, people are on the streets unemployed. We need to deal with the issue of piracy because if we don’t deal with it, the perpetrators will become bolder and they will go on to do worse things. We are now at a point where people are now shooting and killing Censors’ Board staff. I can assure you that we are going to get to the bottom of these things and those people, when they are caught, certainly, we will do all within our power to make sure the full weight of the law is brought down on them.
Q: Some people also believe that the Copyright Commission and the Censors’ Board focus more on film makers but allow television producers to screen all these foreign soaps without going through the process of censorship?
A: No. You know there are two regulatory bodies when it comes to content in Nigeria: the Censors’ Board and the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC. When content is broadcast, it is the responsibility of the NBC. We have had cause in the past to deal with the issue of censoring foreign programmes. Once it comes in a taped format, in a package, it has to be censored and it has to be given a rating, whether it’s going to be broadcast or not. In other words, if the tape, let’s say Mexican soap, is coming into Nigeria, it comes into Nigeria as a tape, as a package, then it will be viewed, it will be certified, it will be given a rating before it is broadcast. But if it is coming as a TV programme, either via satellite or whatever, it is really not our concern; it is the concern of the Broadcasting Commission. NBC will now decide whether that programme should be aired or not and what time the programme should be aired. We have built competence over the years in terms of rating and that is our job. Our job is to know, based on our law, based on our experience of the last 15 years that we have been here, to say that this particular content should be given a G or an R, or should be broadcast at these times of the day. So, even if you go to the NBC code, you will see quite clearly that there is a section that says that the National Film and Video Censors Board should rate content before it goes on air.
We have now delved into music videos. Under our current regulation, no broadcast station should broadcast any music video without it being rated by the Board. So, we see these things, but there is still a lot of information that is not factual. There is a lot of ignorance, so our job is to continue to promote and deal with that issue of ignorance so that people will know what they should do and how they should relate to us. But clearly, we are working with the NBC to deal with the issue of censorship and rating of content before it goes on air. Once it comes via satellite, it is very difficult for us to do, but if it goes on television, it is the responsibility of the NBC. Once content is used for television, it is the responsibility of the NBC. The NBC may from time to time call us to assist them in rating and censoring. That has been the relationship we have had in the past and we hope to continue with it.
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