THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE NIGERIAN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY

The history and development of the development of the Nigerian motion picture industry can be divided into two main parts: (i) the Colonial Era till the 1980s and (ii) the 1980s till date.

The Colonial Era till The 1980s
According to previous research and findings, Nigeria’s first contact with cinema was in 1903. It was at the instance of Herbert Macaulay, a foremost nationalist who invited the Balboa and Company who was then doing an exhibition tour of silent films on the West African Coast to Nigeria. The films were shown at the Glover Memorial Hall, Lagos in August, 1903.
The success of the Balboa venture paved the way for an influx of European film exhibitors to Nigeria (Ekwuasi, 1984: 9). Shortly the colonial government took interest and brought in a lot of films (Itam, 2000:32).According to Ekwuasi (1984) film production, distribution and exhibition was restricted to Lagos where they compete with concerts and drama shows and the contents of such movies were highly censored. Gradually, however it fanned out to towns in the immediate hinterland of Lagos and beyond it. As the country became more industrialised and urbanised, there was a need to establish distribution/ exhibition centres in these new areas and in no time, the branches of the distribution and exhibition companies had spread all over the country( Nweke,1995).

The colonial government did not fully practice in the film business until the commencement of the World War II with the establishment of the Colonial Film Unit (CFU). The unit was charged with making films for the colonies and the objectives of the films were: first, to show/convince the colonies that they and the English had a common enemy in the Germans; to this end, about a quarter of all the films made by the CFU were war-related. Second, to enhance communal development in the colonies. Third, to show the outside world the excellent work being done in the colonies. [Ekwuasi, 1991:2].The CFU was the main producer of films in colony and was funded through the Colonial Development Welfare Act. The CFU made propaganda films. The unit acquired films and showed them to the people. All the films were to help the spread of British imperialism (Rosaleen, 1981:5 in Ekwueme, 2000). There were two main approaches to production at this time; the affirmation of the coloniser’s culture as better and the negation or mockery of the colonised culture. Films like A NEW FIRE BOMB and THE BRITISH ARMY reflected the mighty power of the colonialists while films such as TARZAN OF THE APES showed Africans as inferiors who needed to be led around by the colonialists. Hyginus Ekwuasi condemns this approach; he submitted that the ideological practice of the CFU films was the “glorification of the coloniser” [Ekwuasi 1987:26].

With the attainment of independence, the Colonial Film Unit (CFU) became the Federal Film Unit (FFU). But the Federal Film Unit (FFU) still retained most of the functions of the Colonial Film Unit which were the production of film about the country also private individuals began to produce and exhibit feature films. However the searchlight had shifted from colonialism and the need for independence to the need to restrict neo-colonialism. Black became beautiful, a thing to be explored and enjoyed and the colonialists came to be seen as rapists of the rich culture of Nigeria and indeed Africa. Novelists like Chinua Achebe emerged and used creative writing to show the colonialists as disrupters of a noble and pure indigenous culture.
The primary function of the Federal Film Unit was the production of documentaries. These documentaries were funded by the government and sometimes international organisations like UNICEF. The foreign film distributors and exhibitors succeeded in turning attention from the documentaries to themselves. Their cinema houses were filled to the brim with eager viewers and for a long time they made a lot of profit. Meanwhile Nigerians became involved in the production of films and by 1970, the first indigenous feature film was produced in Nigeria: KONGI’S HARVEST. It was however directed by an American and it featured many foreigners as crew members. With the oil boom, more individuals became involved in the production of indigenous films include Eddie Ugbomah, Ladi Ladebo, Ola Balogun,U.S.A Galadima among other who had been trained during the CFU era. According to Rosemary Itam, the Yoruba Travelling Theatre practitioners, seeing how successful the foreign film distributors and exhibitors were[Itam,2002:34] and motivated by their audiences’ demand to do their stage plays to film [Malomo,1993] decided to produce their own movies. Working with some of the already popular Nigerian filmmakers such as Ola Balogun and others, the Alarinjo theatre troupes made films include AROPIN TENIA, JAIYESIMI, IJA OMINIRA, IJA OMIRAN, OWO L’GBA etc all on 35mm celluloid reel.

Apart from the fact that the viewing public were hooked to foreign films, they had problems in the procurement of equipment, manpower, piracy and ultimately in marketing. This killed the zeal of these new-comers to filmmaking. In 1979, the Nigerian Film Corporation was established to provide structural backbone for the development of the industry in terms of manpower training, marketing assistance and infrastructure. A decree validating its existence was released by the government and a facility was allotted to it in Jos, Plateau State but it did not help the industry much. Years later a National Film Policy was also put in motion. Neither did this save the ailing industry from it problems and by the mid 1980s it was nearly impossible for films to be made on celluloid. Film stocks were expensive to import, and celluloid was expensive to process. Rushes had to be taken abroad for development and other processing coupled with it was the harsh economic scenario in the country, thus many filmmakers opted for the use of video tapes as it was more economical; easily accessible and inexpensive to editing unlike the celluloid.

The 1980s till Date
According to Akin Adesokan, the Video film “grew out of benign bootlegging of music videos in a cassette culture…cannibalising the idioms of the soap opera, Yoruba travelling theatre, and remnants from the golden era of the Nigerian cinema”.[Adesokan, Nollywood.net, 2005] By the end of the 1980s, Video films had become the strongest technological medium of popular culture and entertainment in Yoruba urban centres. First to realise its immense social and economic potentials were the popular musicians, then some television stations followed realising how popular the drama series they sponsored had become, they transferred them to video. Owing to the fact that video cameras were very cheap and easy to carry and control would-be filmmakers found a ready medium to work with. With this state actors can be called together and rallied to act out a story in imitation in the manner of the vanishing theatre tradition and thus everybody was back in business [Jonathan Haynes, 1990:50].
The appearance of video films in Nigeria, plus its popularity, point to its importance as a new medium for the production, dissemination and consumption of film as a form of popular culture, with its ideology and aesthetics [Ekwueme,2002] The idea of video films was inspired by Yoruba Travelling Theatre. The idea was later introduced by Babatunde Adelusi (Adamson) publisher of a now rested photo-play Magazine who said that the production of video films will not only save cost of production but will be a good alternative to Indian and Chinese films. This idea was later actualised by Ade Ajiboye (Big Abass) who produced SOSO MEJI, the first Nigerian Video film in 1988. It was shown publicly at Tinuade Cinema in Oworonshoki, Lagos for a token fee and it was successful. Subsequently, Alade Aromire produced EKUN in 1989 which he screened at the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos. The success of the movies was an eye opener for other producers. Hence many Yoruba movie actors and enthusiasts mostly based in Meiran, a Lagos suburb sought assistance from film promoters like Kenneth Nnebue of Nek Video Link, Lagos and Sulaimon Aweda who were both important film distributors and exhibitors. Kenneth Nnebue, capitalising on the gains of the industry, decided to invest in a lot of low budget video films. Such video films include AJE NI IYA MI, IJA ELEYE, OSA ELEYE etc.

The development did not go down well with the new school of “video filmmakers” who termed his investments as peanuts. They left and organise themselves. Jide Kosoko, Adebayo Salami, Gbenga Adewusi and Alade Aromire led them, [Ekwueme, 2002:34] this regrouping resulted in the appearance of different production companies including Bayowa Films International, Aromire Films, Jide Kosoko Production and many others. Films began to be produced in large volumes and with film marketers and distributors setting up offices and distribution outlets in Idumota, Lagos, the industry took off.
Video film in Igbo language was silent until the latter part of 1992, when Kenneth Nnebue produced the first Igbo Video film in the country, LIVING IN BONDAGE which became a major hit among the Igbo audience and was also well accepted by non-Igbo speaking audience. Other Igbo video films followed, Igbo films were produced in either Igbo or English languages. Video films like TABOO I and II by Dan Oluigbo of Sage Production. JEZEBEL by Francis Agu, Amaka Igwe-Isaac’s RATTLESNAKE I and II, VIOLATED I and II and many others were produced. By the 1992, a new crop of professional filmmakers have emerged from the Eastern and other parts of the country. Virtually unknown on stage before their début into the Nigerian film industry most of them have produced or acted in serials for television notably Zeb Ejiro, Kenneth Okonkwo and Amaka Igwe-Isaac. With the massive entry of Igbo and English video films, the producers of Yoruba video films who had hitherto monopolised the business faced a though competition and as a result a vibrant industry was created.
Moreover, there has also been the production of Nigerian video films in minor languages such as Efik, Ijaw and Itshekiri. Nigerians abroad are also producing films for Nigerians in the Diaspora such include KING OF MY COUNTRY, LONDON BOY. Video films are also produced in Hausa language, the centre of which is in Kano, Nigeria.

Today, video film production is a multi-billion naira industry which provides a source of livelihood for many people both at home and abroad. The industry has also produced many “stars” as well as its own international events. Initially, when the video film came into existence some actors were not well remunerated but currently the appearance of actors like Pete Edochie, Fathia Balogun, Liz Benson, Omotola Jalade- Ekeinde, Racheal Oniga, Bukky Wright, Bukky Ajayi, Nkem Owoh, Ramsey Noah, Desmond Elliott, Genevieve Nnaji, Kayode Fash-Lanso, Patience and others; in a video film guarantees good box office success. The African movies Academy Awards has been holding in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state since 2004. As Kenneth Ekwueme pointed out in his essay- The Negative Influence of Nigerian Video films on the Youth the “possibilities are endless”.