National Censors Board Destroys Pornographic Films in Kano
The National Film and Video Censors Board has
confiscated illegal and pornographic films worth over N8million.
The Executive Director of the board, Adedayo
Thomas, disclosed this on Thursday in Kano while burning the “illicit,
unwholesome and unapproved movies and video works” confiscated.
He said the items were part of over eight N800million
materials seized by the board across the country.
According to him, a similar raid was carried out in
Sokoto State where there was prevalence of animal bestiality and other obnoxious
pornographic materials.
Thomas recalled that two years ago, the national
task force on unapproved movies was reconstituted to checkmate unwholesome
films and other illicit activities.
While highlighting the prospects of movie industry
in Nigeria, the executive director said: "The Nigerian film industry
recently surpassed India's Bollywood to become the second largest in the world
after Hollywood, and was awarded the new emerging film market.
"Recent box office earnings indicated that
Nigerians spent about N7 billion on tickets at the cinemas in 2019. These
figures, according to him, are exclusive of earnings from cinema industry value
chain, VCDs, DVDs, online streaming, videos on demand and over the top
platforms, pay TV channels, community cinemas and other distribution
channels."
Thomas lamented the conflict of regulatory
activities and the double taxation by Kano State censorship board which he said
frustrated investors.
He said: "Although film regulation is on the
concurrent legislative list, however, the constitution also provides that the
federal law in that regards supersedes and override any other law in that
regards.
"There have been several calls and complaints
for us to harmonise our position with the Kano State Censorship Board, and we
are open to dialogue in order not to stall the current progress and successes
of the Nigerian film industry."
Also speaking, the President of Motion Pictures
Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MOPPAN), Ahmad Sarari, appealed to
censors board not to restrict it regulatory activities to local content alone,
but also on foreign content, which he said constitute 70 per cent of Nigerians’
consumption.
He also appealed to censors board to allocate 40 per
cent of what cinemas are showing in Nigeria to local content
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