A Pan African Innovation Organisation, AfriLabs, is seeking the partnership of the government and the Organised Private Sector (OPS) to unlock opportunities in Nigeria’s multi- billion dollars creative economy.
The innovation hub argued that the creative economy in Nigeria is capable of generating jobs for Nigeria’s teeming youths, and is also capable of boosting the nation’s GDP if the government creates the right policies
This was the opinion of stakeholders at a forum in Lagos tagged “Art Tech Lagos”.
In a keynote address, Obi Asika, a renown reality TV Show Icon said that the Nigerian government and Nigerians need to place more values on the nation’s creative and cultural works including traditional festivals and films, describing them as the most original and among the biggest globally.
Asika said that all that is required to unlock the one billion dollar industry is to properly package the contents and push them to a wider audience, preferebly through TV.
He said that TV remains the biggest platform to market creative contents, as he enjoined TV stations to jettison the culture of selling airtime, but rather concentrate on creating contents, which is more profitable.
“We have to engage ourselves, we have to engage our actual culture, our indigenous value. And until you place value on yourself, you cannot have money. If you diminish who you are, you will stay diminished. So we have to elevate everything about ourselves.
“And when you elevate what you are, and you’re now visible, those that have distribution, which is the key thing that I’m talking to technology, guys, the technology can bring distribution and scale and monetization.
“And while you can make money, because that is the fundamental thing, you want to be able to monetize the content, monetize the stories, and the stories are taught in many different ways, Podcasts, documentary, film, animation, music, literature, poetry”.
” We have abandoned our own mythology. The greatest stories in the world that are untold are in Africa. In Nigeria, you have more cultural festivals than anywhere in the world. When we stop being afraid of ourselves, then we own the world.
“So we have 400 TV stations. TV stations don’t sell airtime. They make content. And advertisers can see what is the most watched content and they give you the money. So our advertising industry is big enough for a television community to be at least a billion dollars a year today.
While delivering her address,, the Executive Director, AfriLabs, Ann Ekeledo, described Nigeria as a nation of great talents in music, comedy, writing , fashion, dancing, among others.
Ekeledo said that the goal of her organisation was to partner critical stakeholders, including governments
She said that the sector has the opportunity to create millions of jobs for young people , thereby addressing the worsening unemployment situation in the country.
“Everybody knows how African creatives have become a soft power outside the continent. Everywhere you go across the world, you hear Nigerian music, you have Nigerian films, next generation fashion as well. What we are going to do is to make the sector a lot more financially viable.
“We want other stakeholders, like the government, for example, to begin to see the creative economy as critical to social and economic growth and investing in it. We want to see creative policies and regulations by the government that will make the creative sector thrive,” Ekeledo said.
She explained that as part of measures to scale up the sector, there was need for policies, that among others, ensure the protection of intellectual property, guarantee infrastructures and technologies for producing quality works, make available subsidies for filmmakers to reduce cost of production and create a marketplace for practitioners.
Also speaking, a Board Member of Afrilabs, Dr. Itoro Emembolu urged practitioners in the creative ecosystem to leverage the expertise of one another to enhance the quality and quantity of their work as well as increase their online presence to become more viable economically.
While stressing the need for indigenous social media platforms that will enable local creatives enjoy more benefits from their works, Emembolu called on them to accelerate creation of local contents since the number of contents uploaded online determines the revenue base.
” When you own the content, then you can now generate revenue from that content. Every content you put on YouTube, gets generating revenue on it, just a small percentage.
“So how can we create that content situated here and generate the revenue and gain royalties on it wherever it goes, because our content is going worldwide?
“These are the conversations we need to have within ourselves and government to see how we can move that forward,” Emembolu said .
The event brought together notable creative Nigerians from across the country, including Creative Director and Choreographer, Kaffy and Efe Omorogbe who spoke on “value chain opportunities in the music industries.
The creative economy in Africa is a rapidly growing sector that encompasses a wide range of industries include music, film, Literature,art, fashion and digital media.
