Movie practitioners and others in the entertainment industry in the country have been challenged to use their popularity and wide reach to assist the government in achieving the ideals of the Police Reform programme.
Minister of Police Affairs, Navy Captain Caleb Olubolade gave the charge when he received a group of Nollywood actors and actresses in his office.
According to the Minister, Nollywood has become the nation’s widest and most effective reach to the populace and the international community and should therefore transform into a very potent tool for fighting terrorism and other forms of insecurity plaguing the country.
He advised practitioners in the entertainment industry to review the contents of their works to promote peaceful coexistence, national cohesion and moral rectitude rather than obscenities and morally-corrupting contents.
Olubolade informed the Nollywood practitioners that the Police Reform programme placed very high emphasis on the welfare of officers and men of the force as well as their training, provision of state-of-the-art equipment, mobilization of the populace for effective community policing and the improvement of the hitherto battered image of the police.
He welcomed their decision to come together to seek ways of contributing to the efforts of the federal government to improve the capacity of the force to provide adequate security for lives and property in the country.
The Minister particularly challenged them to use their media to positively improve the image of the force by show-casing their achievements more than their failures. This, he said, would engender more dedication, boost the confidence of not only the police personnel but also the public at large in the Force.
Earlier, the leader of the group, Mr Femi Branch told the Minister that they had come together to seek ways of contributing their quota to the efforts of the federal government to reposition the Nigeria Police for effective performance.
According to him, the Nollywood movie industry, being a media-based one, has the capacity to provide public education and sensitization on the capacities and needs of the police and engender public empathy for the force through its contents.
He further told the Minister that it was in view of this that they were embarking on a movie project of 52 episodes and called for the cooperation of the Ministry and the Nigeria Police.
