The President, Actors Guild of Nigeria, Emeka Rollas, has said he will be meeting with members of the association to come up with a collective stand on the directive by the Federal Government to stop money rituals, smoking and crime scenes in Nigerian movies.
Rollas spoke to our correspondent on Wednesday in response to the statement by the Executive Director, National Film and Video Censors Board, Shaibu Husseini, that the FG had banned such scenes in movies.
Noting that he was in support of the directive, Rollas, however, said his opinion did not represent the collective stand of the organisation, adding that the FG was concerned about the use of such scenes to glamorise actions that would create further harm than good in society.
Rollas said, “The Federal Government is not banning those things outright; there is a rider under it that says glamourising those things in our medium and making it look like that is the only source of survival is not doing us any good as far as Nigerian culture is concerned.
“One of the discussions when that issue was raised was that we were talking about smoke-free Nollywood. It might interest you to know that even some Nigerian musicians who are singing are originally smokers in real life, but when they want to do their videos for a global audience, they do so without smoke to get the attention of the global media.
“Nobody is saying that these are not social vices, they are, but if you glamourise them, it gives a wrong picture and teaches a wrong thing instead of changing somebody. Today in Nigeria, youths believe to make money you have to do one kind of thing, nobody believes in natural labour again and that is what the Federal Government is trying to say.”
Explaining further, Rollas said it was possible to tell stories about money rituals without glamourising rituals.
“We are still going to discuss that in our subsequent meetings to see if we are going to collectively stand by the directive. I am only speaking in my capacity as Emeka Rolland,” he added.
Also speaking on the matter, the National President, Theatre Arts and Motion Pictures Producers Association of Nigeria, Bolaji Amusan, said he would be meeting with members of the association to discuss the new directive by the FG.
He said, “I was at the conference where it was pronounced yesterday in Enugu State. The Federal Government has explained the reason behind it and as an association, we are going to meet but there is no way we won’t support the Federal Government because of our culture and some other things.
“Every movie association was well represented and they (FG) explained the rationale behind it. For now, we don’t have anything against the FG, we will meet at the association level, and whatever areas our members feel we have to adjust, we will engage the federal government and let them know.”
