Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said
it is time for Africans to explore the platform created by the ongoing
digitization in broadcasting to tell their own story from different
perspectives.
The Minister made the remarks in Lagos on Sunday at the launch of the
television reality show, tagged “My African, a Reality TV Show”.
“The world wants to hear our stories and are ready to pay a lot of
money for it. This is evident in the runaway success of the dance
drama ‘Wakaa The Musical’, which was performed to global acclaim in
London recently. We just need to make the product of the right quality
and accessible to all,” he said.
Mohammed thanked the organizers of the event for putting up a
creative platform to promote the African culture, saying the programme
is coming at a critical point in Nigerian history as the nation seeks
to lay the proper foundation for a very vibrant and productive
economy.
“The free fall of oil prices is a blessing in disguise as it is
pushing and teaching us to harness all our natural and creative
resources to build a new economy that will not be dependent on just
natural resources,” he said.
The Minister said the present administration has realized the huge
potentials of the creative industry in stimulating economic growth and
job creation, hence the renewed vigour to promote the industry to the
mainstream by enacting the appropriate laws and providing subsidies,
financing, and Infrastructure required to achieve the desired goals.
”My Ministry has the responsibility for the entire breath of the
Creative industries – Film, Radio, TV, Music, Arts, Production,
Advertising etc. Therefore, we are being called upon to chart a path
for the development of our creative industries. Our focus will be on:
Mass creation of jobs and development of skilled and managerial
abilities, formalising and growing the export of all aspects of the
industry so that it becomes a significant foreign exchange earner for
the country and provision of key infrastructure that will encourage
local and foreign investments into all the key aspects of the Creative
Industries,” he remarked.
Chairman of the occasion, Chief Adewale Adeoye, said the project
was conceived to reflect Africa not in terms of misery and poverty but
a joyous continent driven by a vibrant culture.
