Lai Mohammed denies saying ‘music, film we consume must be made in Nigeria’

Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, has done a turnaround on his statement that there will be no more shooting of movies/music videos outside Nigeria. 

During a visit to the Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) on Saturday, the minister was quoted by NAN as saying, “government has agreed that henceforth, whatever we consume in Nigeria in terms of music and films, must be made in Nigeria”.

But speaking on the matter on Tuesday at the Creative Industry Financing Conference, Mohammed denied making such claims.

“At that meeting, I said that I will work to amend the NBC code to ensure that if a product is designated a Nigerian product; it must be produced in Nigeria,” he said.

“I didn’t say that henceforth, all music and films will be produced in Nigeria.

“All I said was that if a programme is designated as a Nigerian content programme, we will amend the code to ensure that it is produced in Nigeria.”

The minister, however, maintained that the government is working on ways to curb the shooting of movies, music videos abroad.

He said if the law says a programme shall have 60 per cent Nigerian content, the producer could not go ahead to shoot such outside the country for Nigerian viewers.

“Of course, they will come and say that you do not have infrastructure and that is why they went outside to shoot.

“I asked if it is not the same programme you went to shoot outside Nigeria because we have epileptic power that you will bring back to show to us in Nigeria.

“Then, with which power are you showing the programme?

“I promised Nigerians that I am going to create one million jobs in three years and I can’t do that if they start exporting jobs to other countries,’’ he said.