Charles Okogene
He took over the reins of power officially at the Abuja office of National Film and Video Censors Board in March 2024, though, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, appointed him and others on January 12, 2024. What a New Year gift!
Before he was selected among the estimated 200 million+ Nigerians, Dr. Shaibu Husseini whose career started at the Benue State Broadcasting Service, had distinguished himself as one of the die in the wool movie reporters in NIGERIA on the stables of the flagship (Guardian Newspapers) where his second name was Mr. Nollywood who knew where all the dead bodies are buried in the industry. HIs arrival at NFVCB marked a positive milestone in the affairs of the board that had been known for its policy of spare the road and spoil the child.
But Husseini who came prepared for the job as if he knew he was destined for it brought with him the policy of engagement with Nollywood stakeholders including content creators. While his was more of classification and moderation of the pranking contents of content creators as opposed to the brute enforcement of movie censorship that takes days.
He also made sure that moviemakers do not have to wait for weeks/months on end before their films are classified or make endless trips to the Abuja office of the board to get the censorship. He not only jettison the archaic style of censorship that is no longer in vogue the world over, but put in place a process of one pushing one or two buttons in the comfort of his room/office on his phone or computer and get the classification done.
Next was his campaign for moderation of cigarettes smoking and alcohol drinking in our films. He called for moderation especially where it is absolutely important that smoking/drinking scene is necessary and the campaign has paid off as no recent Nollywood film projects such scene.
But Husseini is not satisfied yet. He kick started a series of workshops/seminar aimed at educating Nigerians of the huge untapped potentials of the industry, which it’s practitioners grew to a huge industry and job provider without government or finance institutions’ initial support.
Such workshops have been held at Sheraton Four Points Hotel Lagos, where time tested moviedoms/stakeholders’ delivered lectures or shared their experiences on how it all started.
The recent one held at the University of Lagos was aimed at teaching the under graduates how to fit into the industry. And it was a huge success for the wannabes.
in just one year, Husseini who is better known as Ighalaman by some of us, has shown that at the end of his first four years term (because we know he will get a second term), we will be the ones begging him to carry go we are with you.
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