By Magnus Eze
The director-general of the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), Alhaji Adedayo Thomas, seems to be in a hurry to reposition the sector so that all industry players could reap the full benefits of their labour.
First, he has declared total war against unwholesome movies by inaugurating a task force on eradication such works around the country.
The committee, which has veteran moviemaker, Chief Eddie Ugbomah, and moviemaker/distributor, Igwe Gabosky Okoye, as some of its members, is headed by the DG himself.
Thomas regretted that the NFVCB has not lived to its billing as a regulatory agency in recent times, leading to chaos in the system that has, according to him, “taken profit away from the right beneficiaries to the profiteers.”
While the war against unwholesome movies is being waged in markets and shops, the NFVCB has also taken another kind of war to schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
This one is basically a war against watching bad movies, which NFVCB Director of Operations, Mr. Chiedu Okolue, cautioned students that they could lead to drug addiction and other dangerous lifestyles or death.
Speaking when he led a team on a sensitisation campaign to Government Secondary School, Ushafa, Abuja, in continuation of the agency’s media appreciation programme tagged “Media Literacy Campaign” to schools in the FCT, Okolue introduced the staff and students of the school to media education, with emphasised films and video works.
The director urged them to always be careful in selecting films and video works for viewing, explaining that “the board classifies movies according to age and this is to make it easier for everyone to know what movie is suitable for any age.”
He further advised students to watch only movies classified for their ages.
The train last week berthed at Government Secondary School, Bwari. Like at GSS, Ushafa, Okolue informed the students that the board was collaborating with popular search engine, Google, to stage a programme, “Web Ranger,” in the United States later in the year, and about 100 students from Nigeria might be participating.
Aside from enlightening the students on the dangers of unwholesome movies, the director gave them some didactic lessons.
The event was enlivened with a game called “balloon challenge”, which was designed to facilitate bonding and love among the students.
Daily Sun could not confirm the number of schools where the sensitisation would take place, but NFVCB’s head of corporate affairs, Mr. Martins Etuechere, disclosed that the agency was determined to combat piracy and other unwholesome practices in the sector by raiding markets and viewing centres while deploying other regulatory strategies.
He noted that the media literacy campaign would enable impressionable young people, who are susceptible to being exposed to all manner of bad movies, especially in this age of social media that is at everybody’s disposal, to be given adequate enlightenment, so as to insulate them from possible harm.