Colonel Felix Alaita, promoter of the Nigeria Creative Industries Development Bill and Senior Special Assistant to the President (CRA&E) held a high-powered parley in London on Tuesday, February 21, 2023.
The evening was moderated by multi-hyphenate, lawyer, historian, musician, and Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Ed Keazor.
It provided an opportunity for Col. Alaita to share with his audience the broad strokes of the proposed Creative Industries Development Bill (NCIDB). He described the bill as a “Whole of Government/Whole of Nation approach to championing an Executive Bill slated to serve as part of Mr. President’s legacy to provide an enabling environment for our creative and enterprising youths.”
Chuka Udemezue, Col. Alaita, Prof. Oba Nsugbe and Ed Keazor – (Photo Credit: Ed Keazor)The bill according to the promoters “aims to bridge the gap between the Nigerian creative industries and the Government to build a vibrant, profitable, rapidly growing creative sector.” Continuing they note that it will achieve this “by transforming the creative space through a legal, regulatory, and institutional framework, with an executable action plan.”
Speaking further, Col. Alaita who acknowledged that there is significant creative ferment in the country as seen in the growth of Afrobeats and Nollywood noted, however, that the creative industry needs a bill to “help provide structure and facilitate efficiencies in the ecosystem.”
Guests at the very interactive session included Prof. Oba Nsugbe, SAN and QC and Chair of the Africa Centre; entertainment impresario, DJ Abass; British Empire Medal recipient, Matthew Otubu; Fela Kuti’s former manager, Rikki Stein.
Other attendees included infomediaworks head honcho, Segun Martins Fajemisin; LSEG regulatory compliance consultant, Chuka Udemezue; Samson Onwe of Abibiman publishing; journalist and writer, Peju Akande, media personality, Moni King Keazor, Debola Adebowale; Adunni Adeleke and Peter Fisher amongst others.
A Group photo from the Nigeria’s Creative Industries Development Bill parley in London (Photo Credit: Ed Keazor)Col. Alaita took questions from the audience and provided answers that helped assuage misgivings around issues of government control and coercion, taxation and censorship, as well as concerns around the sustainability of such an initiative.
When passed into law, the resulting commission and Creative Impact Fund, as articulated in the bill, will interface with and help to attract more investment and support for the growth of fields such as music, film, theatre, broadcast, social media platforms, gaming — AI Visualisation, music production and distribution, publishing (books, magazines, newspapers, etc) performing arts (theater, dance, comedy,), photography, radio, television production, software and app development, web, and digital media arts.
A cross section of guests during the interaction – Photo Credit: Toni Kan
