The World is Waiting To Hear Our Stories, Minister Tells TV, Movie Producers

The 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.

Alhaji 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.

The 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.