Peace Anyiam-Osigwe and Dayo Ogunyemi’s essay on the relationship between the creative industries and the Federal Government flew under radar. It shouldn’t have and in case you missed it, here are five key points from it.

Despite all the talk, the GEJ administration failed with its Nollywood policy…

Not a single one of the high profile film projects that received support from GEJ’s NEXIM/BOI administered funding program achieved commercial success – not Dr. Bello, not Half of A Yellow Sun. No tangible structural improvements can be gleaned from the much vaunted Project ACT Nollywood – the interventions from that grant program have been decidedly of the ‘come and chop’ variety.

…mainly because it didn’t understand the industry in the first place

The Ministry of Finance led by Ngozi Okonjo Iweala had neither the sector expertise nor the data upon which to set sensible policy. […] That administration’s failure to gather, aggregate and understand firm level data and challenges is evident from the laughable dimensions of the macro level claims carelessly made about Nollywood – ‘it accounts for millions of jobs, second only to agriculture.’

New policies must be developed.

To develop a responsive film industry policy, one would need to understand how the global film industry has operated, the changes and stresses it is undergoing and how it will look in the future and also understand where Nigeria and Africa have come from with respect to leisure and entertainment consumption and how technology, demographics and culture are likely to evolve. This combination of skill sets and experience is not readily available off the shelf.

The new administration must take a hands-on approach

At the threshold, the Buhari administration must address three key but non-exhaustive things:

• Comprehensive industry data and analysis;
• A strategy that maps out the growth options for the industry;
• and Commitment to transformative policies around access to finance and distribution.

The filmmakers must be involved

We are not disinterested observers – we have been at the forefront of separating fact from fiction in this weird and wonderful journey to building a movie industry with sustainable structures. Our record speaks volumes […] It might be a smart idea to start engaging us and several other people who have a track record of thinking and doing in the industry.