Protest Priorities in Nigeria

After I watched this video I had mixed reactions. The first was "mind your business, you dont have a clue" and the other was "hmmm....well done! nicely said!"

I think this would have hit home or made more sense if it was a Nigerian who said this. I think it would have appealed to people more? then again, how many Nigerians are ready to make such a video or conduct such a protest?

One can look at this situation in 2 ways:

Nigerians are not very good at handling national protests. Its either some complain and do nothing ("yes o! we must protest!" but they dont!) or some go to the extreme (engaging in violence, fighting, etc). In addition, Nigerian officials are always angry and never treat protesters with respect. For instance, the recent fuel subsidy removal resulted in a demonstration that left many either injured or assaulted. It is probably for this reason that many are weary of participating. Even another protest against the Prices at Lekki Toll gate left many discouraged as a result of the rough handling by many police officers, even to people who were trying to lead a violent free protest. At the end of the day, these led to little or no change and everyone has accepted it and probably  adjusted to the system.

Can we really protest against Boko Haram? How and Where?

Sadly, Nigeria is a country where the radicals and those passionate for positive change either end up in prison or are killed and this is not very encouraging. Even those who last long enough end up being bribed to the other side. It takes courage and extreme passion to fight for justice, sometimes to the death and many Nigerians have affirmed that they cannot die for their country.

On the other hand...

The protest held by Unilag students showed that numbers can create an impact in society. Recently, the president changed the name of The University of Lagos to Moshood Abiola University but this has been overruled by the senate who object stating that certain procedures need to be carried out before this could be done. Many Nigerians would agree that the name of the university has a great effect on job opportunities both home and abroad. UNILAG is the Lagos HARVARD; this is the name that has been and will always be recognized by companies and foreign universities. Besides the shallow reasons for the protest, I think this is a really good  one!

So the moral of the story is there will always be Nigerians who will protest for what they can, one can only try in their own way and things that are beyond one's power are left to prayer.

Nigerian Music Videos

I had a discussion with a friend the other day... we talked about Nigerian entertainment and I complained about a couple of obvious issues one can see when comparing Nigerian entertainment content to foreign media content. I wondered if there was any creativity left in the entertainment industry and told my friend I hadn't seen any. he replied "mehn, you've been here too long!"

He made me sit and put a series of Nigerian music videos to watch, here are the two I liked best

Be Your Man- Dipo

Bottom Belle- Omawunmi ft Flavour

I'll have to admit there is a lot of creativity in some Nigerian music videos and the quality has greatly improved. The thing is, why cant this be applied to Nigerian movies?

In my opinion, Nigerian movies are really difficult to watch! the repeated story lines and themes can give one a headache! Then to top it all up the video quality is quite poor.

American Movies made up to 60 years ago still have better quality than Nigerian movies, even better story lines.why cant we improve?

12 angry men- Simple setting, good plot and good acting! year 1957

                                                             Beyonce and Rihanna- ????

To be fair, film culture abroad is quite different from film culture in Nigeria: Although both make use of celebrities to attract the audience, shooting styles and themes are quite different. For example, American themes are mainly focused on contemporary American  life,bizarre ghostly events, love, exaggerated comedy and hyper reality  while Nigerian movie themes are mostly on religion, rags to riches or the reverse, family feuds and so on.

 Our movies mostly show the reality of Nigeria because most stories probably happen in real life. Most of which are quite depressing .

Even if American movies show horror, thrillers and other hair raising or bucket-filling movies, one could easily be re-assured that they dont happen in real life unless indicated that such was based on a true story (in which quite a few are). while one could say that Nigerian movies portray the realities of life and the challenges people face.

Nigerian movies do not have to be a carbon copy or very similar to Hollywood movies (In fact it shows lack of creativity and culture when Nigerian movies dub the same script an American movie has used)  but we could try to be a bit more creative and improve on the quality of our videos! 

movies like The Figurine and Jenifa (although part 3 had too much propaganda) should be commended for an improvement in the creativity and quality of Nollywood movies.... Hopefully in a few years from now one would rush to the cinema, not to watch an action packed American movie but a good Nigerian movie!