Arden & Newton, Ford Foundation report unravels spiritualism, poverty in Nollywood

Arden and Newton Limited has, in its new report, ‘A critical discourse and narrative analysis of female disability representation in Nollywood and other cinemas’ unravelled spiritualism, poverty, and reversibility in the female disability narratives.

The agency, through its social responsibility arm, The Good Partner, with the funding support from Ford Foundation, had embarked on 18 months two-part study and the study of the resilience of women with disabilities in resource-producing communities and the narratives in the Nigerian movie industry.

This is coming on the heels of two previous forums separately held with various development stakeholders on minority group representation in Nollywood films and gender and disability in resource-producing communities in September and October 2021.

Given the non-progressive and antifeminist position of the industry on social issues concerning women, the report content-analysed 13 movies. The selected movies were Submission, I Stand for Love, Conspiracy, Wind of Glory, Munachi the Blind Girl, Obioma the Slave Girl, Mkpulumma My Beauty, Iyi Ogwe, Mad Couple, My Mother, My Pain, Breath Again and Crazy Village Nanny.

The report established that spiritualism is often associated with narratives featuring female characters with disabilities, while most female characters are potentially triply disadvantaged: female, living with a disability and poor, amongst other findings.

According to Project Lead & Creative Director, Perez Tigidam, “What we did was examine gender development and disability issues in Nigeria with a focus on the stigmatisation and marginalisation of women with disabilities.

“We believe that in our many conversations, it is essential to bring forward all of these findings, advocate for an inclusive society, and change the narratives that we tell,” he said.

In a related development, the second part of the published report, ‘Discrimination Against Women With Disabilities in Resource-Producing Communities in Nigeria’ advocated a quota system for women with disabilities (WWDs), in Nigeria’s mining communities.

The report, which surveyed Bayelsa, Benue, Delta, Ebonyi, Kogi, Niger, Osun and Zamfara revealed that 91 per cent of the respondents admit that it is very difficult for women to gain entry into the sector.

It stated: “It is considerably difficult for WWDs to enter the extractive sector across all the LGAs surveyed.”

The report, however, attributed the marginalisation of WWDs in these communities to their lack of skills required to work in the sector.

Given these findings, the report recommended that the federal and state governments should implement a quota system that mandates all mining and oil companies to employ a certain number of women with disabilities.