Indian movies such as Sholay, Amar Akbar Anthony, Chinese movies including Fist of Fury, Enter the Dragon, The Game of Death, reigned in the 70’s into the 80’s. Nigerian film makers such as Ola Balogun, Eddie Ugbomah, late Herbert Ogunde, Adeyemi Afolayan, Afolabi Adesanya produced films on celluloid, especially during the 70’s. Movies such as Bull Frog in the Sun, Ajani Ogun, Muzik Man, Bisi, Daughter of the River, Ija Ominira , Aiye were viewed by Nigerians.
However, many Nigerians preferred the foreign films to the local ones. In the late 80’s into the 90’s, VCRs stormed the country, resulting in the dearth of cine films from our founding film makers.
Ken Nebue’s, Living in bondage in 1992, paved the way for the Nigerian home video industry a.k.a. Nollywood, which has metamorphosed into a multi million naira industry. Preference now shifted to the home videos, being made by Nigerians for Nigerians and Africans in general, an avenue to tell our stories.
However, the charlatan invasion, low ebbed professionalism, shaky productions, flawed stories, among others has made the industry a shadow of itself. The Ghanaian invasion of its actors and actresses into the industry, coupled with the problems of piracy, despite the new distribution framework most marketers are yet to strictly comply with have not helped matters.
The Silver Bird galleria which houses the cinema, NU metro and Genesis Deluxe cinemas; show dominantly Hollywood movies, and with the availability of DVDs of foreign movies down the street, the choice pendulum has once again swung to the foreign movies. Foreign films offer a wide genre of movies ranging from Action, Comedy, Romance, Thriller, Science-fiction, Animation, Mystery, Film-noir, to Violence, Adventure, Crime, Suspense, Drama, Musical, Horror and Fantasy. And they have good special, visual, sound effects, among others. Though, a few Nollywood film makers have upped their game to swing in the direction of the international standard, home videos generally fall below the set quality standard. Time will however tell whether the home videos will once again dominate the Nigerian movie market
The controversial and hilarious hit song (and the video), Ekaette, sung by Nigerian returnee Maye Hunta, has been banned by the National Broadcasting commission (NBC) with effect from today, according to information contained in a memo obtained by NEXT.
The document, which was signed by the commission's zonal director, Ojone Otonoku, said the song and its video were banned because "of its graphic description of sexual scenes and expression not presented with fact and discretion. Stations are therefore requested to immediately stop further broadcast of this musical and air only a broadcast version (if any), "
However, reacting in a telephone chat, the singer defended his lyrics and concept. "If you listen through to the song it is very clean," he said. "I don't know what exactly they are getting at. For me I just feel that what will be will be they can ban it on radio and on TV but the fans are the people who are going to decide."
The artist, real name Olumayowa Adekunle Odejimi, also denied prior knowledge of the ban citing the April Fool's day as a major reason at first. "They haven't written to tell me; what happened was that I saw it on the net when some guy tagged me in a note then a friend of mine who works at a radio station called me to say the song has been banned, and I am like ‘Wahala' they just want to give me more publicity," he said, laughing.
He also added that plans are in a works for a sequel because ‘'fans are loving it, NBC are just a bunch of people who have issues. I mean I listen to the radio and hear foreign songs that are worse than mine. My song is about things that happens and have happened and so I all I did was just to bring it to the fore. I am not moved. I want to believe it is true, although I thought it was April Fool at first. Funny enough, normally NBC pick a list of songs but this time around it's just my song they picked. Bad belle people!"
Other Nigerian songs that have been banned by the NBC include Femi Kuti's Bang Bang Bang, Idrees Abdulkareem's Jaga Jaga, Konga's Baby Konga, Tuface's Enter the Place video and Dbanj's Suddenly. The NBC ban on Ekaette comes five months after its October release.
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