Nigeria’s creative economy must move beyond what many people consider as hobby to a serious business capable of creating jobs, attracting investment and generating significant export revenue, stakeholders have said.

The call was made at the second edition of the QEDNG Creative Powerhouse Summit held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja GRA, Lagos, where professionals, policymakers and business leaders gathered to examine the industry’s future.

Themed, ‘Creativity, Culture and Nigeria’s Next Chapter,’ the summit focused on the need to translate Nigeria’s enormous creative potential into sustainable economic value through deliberate investment, stronger policies and greater collaboration between government and industry players.

The urgency of the conversation is reflected in the growing contribution of Nigeria’s creative sector to the economy. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the arts, entertainment and recreation sector, alongside motion picture and related activities, recorded an output of N728.8 billion in the first quarter of 2024.

However, stakeholders at the summit argued that Nigeria’s creative economy has yet to realise its full potential because creative work is still regarded as a product of passion or hobby rather than as a structured commercial sector.

The experience of countries such as South Korea was cited as an example of what deliberate investment in the creative economy can achieve. South Korea has successfully transformed its cultural products, including music, film, television, games and other forms of entertainment into globally competitive exports.

Its success has been driven not only by the talent of its creative professionals but also by coordinated government policies, private-sector investment, infrastructure, skills development and strategies aimed at taking Korean cultural products to international markets.

Stakeholders said the lesson is not simply to replicate South Korea’s model but to develop a framework suited to the country’s own creative strengths and cultural identity. Nigeria already possesses a large pool of musicians, filmmakers, fashion designers, writers, visual artists, content creators and other creative professionals whose work has gained audiences beyond the country.

Yet, translating that popularity into sustainable economic growth remains a challenge, compounded by an apparent lack of interest from the government.

Issues around access to finance, intellectual property protection, infrastructure, professional management, skills development and international market access continue to limit the ability of many creatives and businesses to scale.

Stakeholders, therefore, called for a shift in conversation from potential to concrete action that would enable the sector to thrive.

They stressed that the industry requires policies and investments that recognise creative professionals as entrepreneurs and businesses rather than simply as entertainers.

With Nigeria’s youthful population and growing digital economy providing a large domestic and international audience for Nigerian content, participants maintained that the country has an opportunity to build a creative industry capable of competing globally.

The challenge, however, is turning talent into an organised and commercially sustainable ecosystem.

As the creative economy continues to expand, the message from the QEDNG Creative Powerhouse Summit was clear: Nigeria has the talent and cultural resources to build a powerful creative industry, but achieving that ambition will require stakeholders to move from talking about the sector’s potential to walking the talk, with the government showing greater interest and commitment.

The keynote speaker, Ife Adedayo, argued that before speaking about “what our stories can build, we must consider what the absence of telling them has cost.”

He said: “We have not yet told our stories, not even to our own children. That is what a story left untold costs a nation. And it is exactly what the power of art and storytelling has the power to reshape.

“South Africa is a smaller country, with fewer people and, frankly, without our raw cultural firepower. Nobody is streaming Johannesburg the way the world streams Lagos. And yet their cultural and creative industries contribute about R271 billion and support roughly 1.4 million jobs. In their economy, their creative sector is now about the same size as agriculture.

“The difference between us and them is not talent. The difference is that they counted it, they structured it, and they financed it. We have the louder voice. They built the better microphone, provided better infrastructure, and supported it with better policies.”

Speaking on the gaps, he said the average Nollywood film has historically been made on a budget that is a fraction of what a single day costs at a serious studio abroad. He lamented that a great script in Nigeria dies because it is broke.

Adebayo, who is the National Coordinator of Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (iDICE), added: “I would be dishonest if I stood here in 2026 and spoke about the future of the creative economy without naming the force that is already remaking it: artificial intelligence. And I know the fear because I share the caution that the machine will flatten our voice, that it will make every story sound the same, that it will take the bread from the animator and the editor and the writer. That fear is not foolish. But AI is not the end of the Nigerian storyteller. It is the largest amplifier the Nigerian storyteller has ever been handed.

“The next chapter of Nigeria will not be written by the government alone, and it will not be written by the private sector alone. It will be co-written by the creator and the financier, by the policymaker and the entrepreneur, by everyone in this room deciding that our story is too valuable to leave untold and too powerful to leave unfunded.
“South Korea sold the world a song. America sold the world a pilot. It is Nigeria’s turn to sell the world a story, and this time, let us own it, finance it, and keep it.”

The convener and Chief Executive Officer, QEDNG, Olumide Iyanda, said: “We are not looking at problems; we are looking at opportunities, growth, and what we can do to make the industry better.

“The creative sector in Nigeria contributes significantly to not just the economy but also to how Nigeria is seen and projected globally,” he said.

“The Nigerian creative sector is growing, and it has the potential for more growth. The creative sector in Nigeria is moving at a pace the Nigerian government hasn’t started.”

He added: “The Nigerian creative economy has witnessed tremendous growth, but it can be better. I realise that a lot of us don’t take advantage, so even if the government is not doing its own bit, the private sector is doing a lot. It can get better if we plan better. I look at solutions and not the problem.”

Speaking also, veteran Nollywood actress Joke Silva said: “I will not say that the Nigerian government has not invested in the creative industry. I think what is important is to learn the lessons from all the investment that has been made as we evolved. We keep tinkering and getting better at those investments.

“If you look at the time of Goodluck Jonathan, the Bank of Industry (BOI) created a studio, and a lot of people were funded, and people used the funds well. Jade Osiberu was one of the people who used the funding very well.

“I found out that a lot of the time, we are underfunded, and when you are underfunded, you are funding to fail. There are development grants specifically for films, but they are outside Nigeria. They do that because they expect creators to have a particular standard of living. They expect creators not to live from hand to mouth. That’s what Korea has gotten right. They have put policies in place that would make a creative person thrive while creating. So, when we underfund, we make it difficult for the creative person to thrive.”

Speaking also, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of X3M Ideas, Steve Babaeko, said: **“We need to do well as a people. We have done a lot as a people; it took people of courage to develop Nollywood and the music industry, but we need to take it to the next level, and we will need a lot of government support at the next level.

“We need the government to put the infrastructure in place and enforce existing laws so that the economy within the creative space can be bigger and we can optimise the value inherent within the economy. One of the ways to do this is for the government to create a creative economy hub in all the regions of the country. Creative hubs will help young people to be more creative, and big names will emerge.

“We have to give credit to the Jonathan administration. The Bola Tinubu government also created a ministry to serve the creative economy.”