PORT-HARCOURT – (FIC Port-Harcourt Report) – The Federal Government has reconstituted the taskforce on unapproved movies at the National Film and Video Censors Board with a view to reinvigorating the Agency toward standard and efficiency.
The Film and Video Censors Board which is a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture has built on the capacity of its staff to ensure productivity in the industry.
The taskforce made up of stakeholders, guilds and in-house operation staff of the Board had made unprecedented success on raids and sensitization to the general public of both States and Federal level.
Speaking during the public burning of confiscated illicit, unwholesome and unapproved movies and video works in Port Harcourt, the Executive Director Alhaji Adedayo Thomas disclosed the responsibility of the Board as licensing a person to exhibit films and video; and premises for the purpose of exhibiting films and video works, ensure, regulate and prescribe safety precautions to be observed in licensed premises. Others, include to regulate and control cinematographic exhibitions, to regulate the import of foreign movies and export of Nigerian movies and to perform such other functions as are necessary or expedient for the full discharge of all or any of the functions conferred on it by its enabling laws.
Alhaji Adedayo Thomas further revealed that the Board had trained not less than 150 members of its staff for the purposes of improving efficiency effective sensitization of the film market for security investment, protection of moral values as a nation and sustenance of national peace, security and harmony in the country.
The staff according to the Executive Director were trained at the Enugu, Kaduna and Lagos Police Training Colleges respectively on enforcement, operational efficiency and tactical approach to field operations adding that another fifteen (15) members of staff were forth trained as supernumerary police officer (spy) at the police training college Ikeja, Lagos.
He noted that the training had equipped the staff to tackle the critical and impending issues of infringement on proprietary rights, bootlegging of movies and other illicit act in the film industry pointing out that this had resulted to massive raid and confiscation of illegal films and video works worth over 800 million naira.
The Executive Director however, said that continuous training is on going in the agency revealing plans to use Rivers State as its Zonal Headquarters while seeking collaboration and aids from the State Government adding that the film industry was the second largest labour employer in the country and that the state stands to benefit from the revenue of the industry at long run.
The highlight of the occasion was the symbolic burning of unapproved and unwholesome film works.
