Popular Yoruba actor, Saheed Balogun has urged the Federal Government to enact stiffer laws to guide and regulate operations of Nollywood, stressing that the current laws regulating the nation’s artistes are too weak and need to be amended.
He said the weak laws were responsible for most of the films being produced in the country in recent times not depicting the indigenous cultures of the citizens. “The present laws guiding the industry are too weak, we need laws and structures that will regulate the indigenous movie industry as well as the kind of foreign films that can be shot in the country”.
“It is unfortunate that the legislations in the various house committees on culture at the national and state levels have not deemed it fit for years to sponsor any bill aimed at restructuring the operations of the entertainment industry. He noted that an offender convicted for pirating a whole film of about seventy containers and only asked to pay a fine of N150,000 as the option would never learn his or her lessons”.
Balgoun also expressed his disappointment at the fact that those who were conversant with the intricacies of movie production were no longer engaged to handle it. He therefore urged Nigerians to stop patronising actors and movie producers whose films did not depict the nation’s numerous cultural values, heritage and social morals.
“If an actor or actress is not doing a good job, we should all stop embracing him or her, such a person will change for the better, if I produce a movie which you don’t like, don’t buy it, this is because restructuring of the industry has to include joint efforts of the government, viewers and the movie makers, we should stop celebrating names of personalities producing substandard movies, rather we should celebrate people who know the right thing and are doing it”, he said. He appealed to government not to neglect the industry.