Nollywood of the good and bad

Sir: Nigeria’s movie industry otherwise known as Nollywood must rank among the most creative and productive in the entire world. With thousands of movies produced yearly and a turnover running into millions of dollar, it will amount to an understatement to say that the industry is doing very well in terms of productivity and financial balance sheet. But quite sadly, maybe because of the entertainment contribution of Nollywood and the popularity of most of the artists, everyone tends to ignore and overlook the rot which has become its highly regrettable trademark.

Rape cases that are swept under the carpet in Nollywood are enough to call for their total ban if it is to leak to the public. The case of Baba Ijesha that made headlines some years back was only a tip of the iceberg and it leaked out after all entreaties to cover it up failed woefully. No responsible married man or woman can join Nollywood without getting smeared by all manners of indecent behaviours perpetrated within the industry.

It is an irony of life that some of them now having so many grown up children out of illicit affairs with different women now upload pictures of themselves in the midst of those numerous children on the social media because they are aware that the public would never get to know that almost all those children they now shamelessly pose for pictures with were raised single-handedly by their mothers whose only benefit in the brief relationship is having popular actors as sperm donors. Their female folks are hardly different from their highly indulgent males as they act true to their suggestive bad nicknames and flirt openly with area boys and touts.

The rule of life, whether anyone believes it or not, is that sinners will never go unpunished. While members of Nollywood keep drinking to stupor, spending lavishly as if there’s no tomorrow, committing many hidden crimes under the cover of popularly assisted by Nigeria’s weak law enforcement, it is always in the end they often discover that all their total package is nothing but mere motion without movement and then they would run to the public to start soliciting for help through their equally idle busybody agents.

It is never too late, however, for Nollywood members to come together to reverse the ugly trend. There must be strict laws to protect all underage girls who for one reason or another are engaged and involved in the movies industry. Someone needs to act urgently to give Nollywood a new direction because the Yoruba say that elders can never sit at the market square and watch a baby’s head hang precariously in its mother’s back without taking any action.

Jide Oyewusi is the coordinator of Ethics Watch International, Nigeria.