Peter Okoye reacts to FG plan to ban Entertainers from shooting music videos, movies abroad

Peter Psquare Okoye has reacted to reports that the Federal Government is set to stop Entertainers from shooting their music videos, movies etc, outside of Nigeria.

This was disclosed by the Minister of Information, Lai Moammed when he paid a visit to the headquarters of the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) today July 15th.

“This government has agreed that henceforth, whatever we consume in Nigeria in terms of music and films, must be made in Nigeria. We cannot continue to go to South Africa or any other country to produce our films and then send them back to be consumed in Nigeria. The Broadcasting Code and the Advertising Code are very clear on this. For you to classify a product as a Nigerian product, it must have a certain percentage of Nigerian content”.

According to Lai, Nigerian entertainers patronise the economy of other countries whenever they go outside Nigeria to shoot their videos;

“When they get there, they will patronise the economy of that country and then bring the products back to Nigeria for us to consume. It is like somebody going to China or Japan to make a product that looks like palm wine and bring it back home to label it Nigerian palm wine. As long as we are not able to implement our own code to ensure local production of Nigerian music and movies, our young talents will not get jobs. It is Nigerians that pay for the consumption of these products and therefore they must be allowed and encouraged to participate in their production. I am going to meet with the relevant stakeholders over this, to see that whatever amendment that is needed to be made to our Broadcasting Code in this regard, is done urgently,” he said

Below is Peter Okoye’s Reaction to this recent development;

His elder brother, Jude has also reacted to this new development;

‘Smh. An industry they NEVER encouraged, supported or empowered is what they now want to control. Let all of you stop running to abroad when you are sick as na naija money una dey use patronize oyibo hospital dem. You people are the ones refusing to fix our health facilities so u travel out when mosquito bite una.

So why tell us where to record when u can’t provide uninterrupted power here in Nigeria. Sometime I wonder how we got it all wrong. Una children when dey sch for abroad na which money una dey use patronize them? Abeg stfu!’