The new regulations on films are not anti-creative and selfish, but serve a healthy screen – Hussein

Since taking office on March 11, 2024, as the new Executive Director of the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) Shaibu HusseiniPh.D. student, began to take action, ranging from a push to replace censorship in the NFVCB with classification, new regulations on smoking, tobacco products, and money rituals and ritual killings, among others, in films.

In this interview, the head of the NFVCB expresses his opinion honestly Obinna Emelike among others about current issues, especially the new regulation, why it will not stifle artistic creation, its mandate and the new mode of work in the Censors’ Council. Fragment.

What are your powers as the new executive director of the Censor Board?

I didn’t come to the Censor Board to mark the register. I came to do what the Censor Board has set, I will not go out of it and I will not do otherwise than what the President and Hannatu Musa Musawa, the Minister of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, want me to achieve.

I also commit to establishing a Board of Censors that will completely move from censorship to classification, I commit to establishing a Board of Censors that will move from analogue to digital classification, I commit to establishing a Board of Censors that will be responsive to itself, to society, to interested parties and the federal government that created it.

Why the request to remove the word “Censors” from the NFVCB acronym?

The first thing I did immediately after taking up my position on the Censor Board was to go to the Minister and inform her that all over the world the word censorship is associated with dictatorship and the army. I asked if we could drop the word and she replied yes, please, that we had a bill in the National Assembly and that I should make sure the change came into effect. So I met with all the people responsible for the accounts, told them what we wanted and managed to convince them. They removed the word censorship from it. So when the bill comes out, there will be no more censorship.

Why the proposed regulation?

The whole idea is that we have a healthy screen and we are engaged. The regulation does not mention one step forward and one step back. This doesn’t concern me. This is about everyone, about young people, about our children and about the future of our children.

I really want us to understand that I have not banned smoking scenes or ritual scenes in our films.

There are aspects of our culture that need to be shown and these are called essential scenes.

What we’re saying is that if you need to act out a necessary scene for the sake of historical accuracy, for educational purposes, and to correct a negative lifestyle, you need to warn people to let them know that these things are not real and this is not a lifestyle you can emulate.

The second argument is that at the NFVCB we don’t watch movies to the end and that if we do, we shouldn’t create rules. I asked those who made this argument what they meant.

They said there were consequences at the end of their videos. The problem is that for some enlightened filmmakers the consequences can be very serious. But most of the consequences I have seen do not compare to the action. Let me give you an example. The man killed seven people in the film, cut off their heads to get rich, with a convoy of cars, tormenting people in the village and so on.

After a while, one of the ghosts starts chasing him, the others join in later, and he becomes a mad man and starts picking things out of the garbage can to eat, and the next thing is, “Glory be to God.” But what are the consequences of killing seven people compared to a killer who later died?

That’s why we need stakeholders, especially the media covering the sector, to understand what we do.

Can you give examples of unhealthy scenes in movies?

Before I became ED at NFVCB, I saw certain images on social media, went to their DMs or have their contacts and sent them a message and asked them what is the moral of this genre you showed us?

There are plenty of shows like the one I’m always talking about, the skit where a man sends a 7-year-old boy to buy him a cigarette. Of course, it is a mistake to send a child to buy cigarettes for an adult.

In the above case, the man not only sent the boy to buy cigarettes, but also asked him to tell the seller “Malam” to light them for him.

The seller lit a cigarette as instructed, and as the boy returned, he branched into the fence to take a puff of the burning tobacco.

When the seven-year-old boy returned, his brother called him Abel, where are you? The boy coughed and replied, “I am.” At this point the man should have asked why the boy was coughing, instead he took the cigarette and asked why it was short, and the boy should have gone back and asked the salesman.

When you watch sketches, the creators of the sketch will create parodic laughter in a unique way to make you think that it is funny. The funny thing about the above is that the boy is so short and has a big belly (sorry for the embarrassment). He went to the “Malam” to ask a question and the “Malam” asked him to ask the “otondo” (silly) boy. He chased the boy, fell down and that was the end of the skit and we laughed. So what is the message or moral of this skit, if I may ask?

There are plenty of them. So when I saw the regulation, I said that as filmmakers we have to take responsibility.

I believe that when an artist takes responsibility, when he does something that doesn’t undermine national security, doesn’t corrupt or harm people and the rest, we don’t have to start saying “go and make this or that in a movie”.

Are there film industries in the world that have appropriate regulations?

When I told people it was a global practice, they argued, so I went and downloaded the instances.

India did it, Hollywood is a self-regulating industry, but they did their own thing too.

First, the major studios said that no smoking should be allowed in any content intended for young people, and even if there was smoking, they would write a scene around it discouraging smoking. Maybe an actor in a movie will say, “Do you still have that habit,” and the guy will say, “Ahhh,” and the actor will say, “You have to stop that, it’s bad.” Then he coughs, that’s one of the effects.

They write it on stage to make it better. Hollywood has done this and now uses more props.

UNESCO also stated that Nigeria is the second largest film producer in the world after India. India set an example for us, so I downloaded Indian films and showed them. What made me happy was that one person who claimed that this ordinance was a law against society and that society would not obey it called me two days later and asked if I wanted them to do all these warnings, and I asked him where he received the warnings from.

He noticed that he had just watched one movie on Netflix and they talked for a minute about the warning and how there was a place in the movie where it said, “Don’t try this at home.”

So these are global practices and things that we should know about that some filmmakers have no idea about.

We will ensure that the bill is adopted as soon as it comes out of the Ministry of Justice, we will re-engage platform owners. Some platform owners have already told us that if unnecessary scenes appear, they usually demobilize the content.

We will continue to meet with them to tell them that this is the law of the land and must be followed.

What about the allegations from some quarters that regulation is selfish and anti-creative?

So regulation is not anti-creative and selfish, otherwise my bosses would call me to place an order. Every time they call me, I explain what we are doing and what level we are pursuing, and they are excited.

There is nothing selfish, anti-creative or creativity-suppressing in this regulation. I cannot be on the Censor Board as an artist and at the same time suppress creativity.

People now hide behind home movies to advertise themselves. In the restaurant you will see a garbage can donated by the tobacco company, so we have to be careful.

What challenges do you foresee with the regulation?

The challenge we will face will be monitoring capacity. But I went to the minister and she is helping us see how we can address the challenges.

I promised that we are moving from analog to digital. This is to enable us to monitor these videos because there are so many of them that they are everywhere and even on the Internet.

We will also cooperate with CAPA. I don’t want money, just give me equipment, give me smartphones, laptops and other things, let me give to my employees so that they can work optimally from anywhere, so that we can continue to look at these screens and monitor videos to ensure a healthy screen.

Are you also looking for media support in your work?

Yes, I need the media’s support to continue to raise awareness of the benefits of the regulation, especially arts and entertainment writers as they are very enlightened. I, too, was one of these amazing writers and I know what their work can do.

Something is already happening in this regard. I was excited by the Tribune Newspaper’s editorial on smoking and ritual scenes in our films. To me, this issue is timely, which is why the Tribune published an editorial on it. I hope that we will see substantive comments on this subject.

What is the role of CAPPA in the regulation?

I was appointed in January 2024, but only took up my position in March. Earlier, I received a letter from Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) asking me to pay me a courtesy call. They kept asking when I was going to resume work, to which I replied that I had not received the nomination letter.

On March 11, 2024, I resumed classes, and the following week the CAPA team arrived. Before they came, I read about what they were doing and adapted to it because I teach at the University of Lagos as an adjunct professor and I found that most of the projects that my undergraduate and even graduate students undertake are mainly academically impactful; the influence of this on behavior, the influence of this and that. At this point I discovered that we had to take this matter seriously.

So when the CAPA team came and said that there was a regulation and that the problem was that we needed to submit it to the Honorable Minister for approval, I studied the regulation, researched what was happening in other parts of the world, looked across the industry, and also put myself as the artist that I am.

At that point I decided that we needed to adopt an ordinance, clean it up, and I’m sure that when they told us to establish a committee, CAPA thought it was a different kind of committee. I told them I wanted to release it in a week. It worked. When I joined the board, it was a civil service structure, but now we don’t work like civil servants.

Those who followed me in the National Troupe where I worked will know that I worked 24 hours. Perhaps this is what really appealed to me to Professor Ahmed Yerima, who had me as his personal assistant for over 10 years.

I told them at the board that this matter must come to light, and it immediately came to light. I wrote a letter to Hannatu Musa Musawa, Honorable Minister of Art, Culture and Creative Economy and said: Mom, let’s show an example in Africa, India did it Hollywood is a self-regulating industry, but they also did their own thing.