In addition to its potentials for social mobilization and political cohesion, the Nigerian film industry is capable of becoming the single largest contributor to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in few years to come if film is taken as a source of economic activity rather than just an art and entertainment.
This is because the key performance indicators in the economy show that with adequate funding, the industry can, in five years’ time, move its contribution to the GDP from the current two per cent to 10.
Managing director of the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), Dr Chidia Maduekwe, made this assertion on Thursday during a stakeholders’ interaction workshop on job creation organised by the Corporation at its Lagos office.
Maduekwe said the creative industry in the U.S. last year generated “a staggering $698 billion, equivalent to 6.5 per cent of all goods and services generated in that country and (now) accounts for one in every 10 jobs in the U.K. economy.”
He noted that to achieve the same feat in Nigeria, the film industry should be integrated into the present administration’s economic diversification agenda. Likening the approach to the Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA), he said rice production was a success story in Nigeria because it is prominent in the government’s agenda and same could be replicated in the movie industry.
“Rice farmers, for many, years could only boast of N10, 000 or N20, 000 from their sales in the past but they now have millions of Naira in their bank accounts. What is happening in the rice revolution is what we want to happen in the film industry.
“It is my firm belief that the sector is set to take its pride of place and if properly funded, the movie industry can become the largest contributor to our national income,” he added.