Lai Mohammed
Nigeria’s creative industry has been described as the fastest-growing sector of the economy with $53 million and $51 million accrued last year from film and music respectively.
The Minister of Information & Culture, Lai Mohammed, said in terms of business opportunities, employment and earnings, the entertainment industry is an unexplored keg of potentialities.
Lai Mohammed said this during a working visit to the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation’s headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday.
He said the film industry is the least untapped.
‘‘Today, we have 53 cinema houses with less than 200 screens but for a population of 200 million people. We need a minimum of 1,000 cinema houses and 6,000 screens.
‘‘You can imagine if Nigeria made $53million last year from the film industry under 200 screens, how much more when we have 6,000 screens. Our music is growing; we are looking at $86 million next year,” he said.
Noting that cultural undertones in Nigeria’s film and music as endearing to the world, the minister said the country could leverage on the industry to be the biggest revenue generation.
“We need to work harder so that we can actually actualise the potentials of this industry and make it not just the fastest-growing sector in Nigeria but also increase our GDP from 1.24 per cent, the industry accounts for 2.24 per cent of our GDP. This can actually grow to 3 per cent of the GDP,” he said.
He then called on the tourism agency to harness the huge potentials of the industry to attract people to Nigeria “because there are many reasons people should come to Nigeria. Nigeria is a country of colours, with 250 ethnic groups, good culture and almost all-year-round good weather.”
“We are blessed with a good music industry that has become global and even Nollywood is the second best in the world. Our fashion is celebrated globally,” Lai Mohammed added.
–NAN