What I should have done differently –Emeka Mba, outgoing DG of Film Censors Board

 After seven years as Director General of National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), Emeka Mba is leaving the stage with a mix feeling: Satisfied with his good intentions for the film industry, he regrets the filmmakers’ reluctance to embrace change. “I built a ship but I needed passengers and I needed the ocean because I could see that there was flood coming” But has a formidable group in Nollywood; Yoruba Video and Film Producers/Marketers Association in Nigeria honoured him with an award amidst huge accolades recently, Mba is so certain that his ideals are gradually being understood. He spoke to VICTOR AKANDE, Entertainment Editor.

It has been seven years. How did you meet the Nigerian movie industry and how would you say you are leaving it?

I think I have done what I consider to be my best, but also in hindsight, like they say, it is perfect vision when you look back. Obviously, I think there are a few things I would have done differently, there are a few things that I shouldn’t have done, but by and large, I think I did everything that I could, given the time, the energy and the vision that I had. When I came into the industry, it was in crisis even though a lot of people refused to see it. I saw it and I went ahead to confront what I thought was a rampant over production in the industry. Fact is that the industry had no depth even though it was very prolific. I think we are beginning to see signs of a rebirth; we are beginning to see signs of a new Nollywood, a new film industry. We have to make some changes and for those who do not want to change, unfortunately, they would be left behind. But clearly, the industry is in a better shape. At least, the industry now understands what it needs to do and a lot of people within the industry are doing it.

Obviously, you have operated a wide consultative policy. You have also engaged consultants to help actualise some of your ideals for the industry. But all that didn’t seem to go the way you wanted. Any regrets?

I think that given a perfect vision and hindsight, the first thing I shouldn’t have done was probably not to have been too accommodating. Initially, I was a bit naive in certain aspects, but the things that I did, I should have done more of it, to put it quite bluntly. My take of the industry remains that the job of the Director General of the National Film and Video Censors Board cannot be done successfully if the industry remains in this state of confusion, remains as a very subsistent kind of industry where everybody just does anything. The dynamics of censorship is very fundamentally different from any other country in the world because this is the number one direct-to-home-video filmmaking country in the world. As a result, it has changed the very precepts, the very dynamics of what film and video censorship is and we try to grapple with that. We are trying to bring structure into it. I think that I should have done a lot more education; I think that I should have pushed for more engagement. It sounds almost contradictory in terms of the fact that I said I was very open. 

What would you say is the reason the filmmakers were uncooperative?

I recognise that the number one problem of the industry is a near absence of long term thinking, a near absence of creative leadership in all spheres of the industry. Even if I am seeing the future, I have to get people to see it with me and I tried to do that. Maybe I didn’t do that enough, so I hope that the person who succeeds me will be able to engage more and secure a lot of education. Not just of the industry people, but also the public- because I have often said to people, the job of censorship is not just for the film industry itself, it is more important for the members of the public because the idea is to protect the public as more importantly as just protecting the film industry. The central thing is that I should have done a lot more in terms of education; both education of the industry people and of the public as well. 

In essence, the problem of the much anticipated Distribution Framework has to do with lack of cooperation from the filmmakers…

When we started the Distribution Framework, I was under no illusion that it would work simply because the Film and Video Censors Board needed it to work. It was a framework. It was something that I brought in consultants for, I believed in it, worked hard at developing it. It was for me like…I built a ship but I needed passengers and I needed the ocean because I could see that there was a flood coming. I needed to have the water. The fact is that the Board, despite our best intentions, we don’t produce movies, we don’t distribute movies. This is a policy that was supposed to help people within the industry artificially implant structures because I realise that you cannot achieve the job of censorship without structures. You cannot even call yourself a regulator when you operate in an industry which lacks structures. 

It means that it couldn’t be said that you want overboard; especially since some people feel that the Board should just concern itself with the core duty of classification

The essence of regulations is to build on the structures to create a market, to open a market, to define a market, to improve on the market, to create more market. If it is confused and everybody is running around, you don’t know who is running around, you don’t know what is being produced, then you can’t call yourself a regulator. All we did is to try as much as we could to create that atmosphere but we needed the support of the filmmakers, the distributors, the producers. But when they started kicking against it in such violent manner, I was taken aback. When we launched it, people from different backgrounds said it was the best thing to happen. We spent time with the launch, we spent time on education. I took some of my staff to the UK and while there all the people who were saying that this is the best thing to happen started fighting against it. I was taken aback. Only to come back to realise that they had written petitions to the president, they have taken court papers. I was seriously taken aback. I started this round of education to tell people that this is what it was all about. It is not for us. We don’t produce films, we don’t distribute films, and we don’t fight piracy directly. It is not our job. We are a bit like garbage in, garbage out. It is what you give us that we censor but we were sitting back and looking at the amount of garbage we were getting. If you operate with what the law establishing the Board says, it is clear. It is not just about censorship, it is not just about classification. Classification is the end product. What leads to it? There are so many other processes that lead to it. The end result of what the public see is classification but the processes that gets us to that are established in the act. Even in places where people bring as examples, whether in the UK, classification. It started from censorship. It was called a censorship board. In New Zealand, it is still called censorship. In Ireland, it is still called the Irish censorship office and they still do the same things we do. They still license cinemas, they still license film distributors, the same thing even in the UK. Warner pictures, Sony Pictures are still under the regulation of the British board of film classification. 

What peculiar differences can you point out between the Nigerian Board and those of the countries you just cited?

In the UK, the cinemas are regulated by the Local Governments, which is really the difference in that particular market. In Australia, they also have their differences. You have to also realise that the dynamics of the Nigerian film market. It is unique in itself. That uniqueness affects the entire value change from how films are made. In the UK, if you want to do a film based on how things are done there, you need a big truck. By the time you go on the streets, the local government would know you are doing a film. The council would know you are doing a film. Because of the dynamics, because of the economic nature of what filmmaking is, it requires so much resources and so much interaction with other people. If you want to do a film in UK and because of the way London is, you need to have the police or council to close down one section. There are a lot of ancillary connections but in Nigeria, you can just get one camera and shoot. Our own market is different.

 In what other areas could Nollywood be said to be affected by lack of structures?

The way the industry works, there is no funding. I had presentations in 2005/2006 when I first came in for almost all the banks then. There is no structure in the industry, there is no accountability. We don’t know who is selling, we don’t know where they are selling, and we don’t know who the people are. I always use this classic example to really underscore what we mean of censorship in the way Nollywood operates. If I say a movie is rated 18 to Silverbird, it is easy for me to send people there to say no one under 18 should enter the cinema and if anyone enters, we lock the place up. We closed Silverbird Cinema down in 2006. But when there are ten thousand small operators around the country in wheelbarrows and small shops, how do you tell that person to obey? It is not possible. You don’t even know who the person is. We had to do all those things within but when the industry people kicked against it, to be honest, a few guys don’t want it.

Was there any attempt to reach a middle ground with the industry practitioners?

We told them to take out the portions they don’t like in the proposed Framework and bring back to us but no one has written anything to counter it. The only time we ever had a discussion was when they formed a coalition which I thought was a brilliant thing. We sat with them, they had issues about some of the financial aspects of the regulation like license fee. And I made them to understand that we are not doing this to make money. The government gives us subventions so we can survive so it is not a question of money. I remember we were going to charge N500, 000 for the license fee, but they said no. We asked them, just to prove that it was not about money, how much they were willing to pay as license fee and one of them mentioned N200,000 for a 2-year license and we said done.

The things we asked them to do, the processes, were more important than even paying the fees. We waved the fees for a lot of people. We cannot have an industry where there is no insurance. You and I know that. You have been to Cannes Film Festival so many times; you see the role of insurance agents and insurance in distribution. You cannot have a film industry where there is no structured funding. You cannot have a film industry where there are no structured distribution entities, where there are no big players, you cannot have a film industry where there are no lawyers, where there are no accountants. It is not possible. Today, the president has established the $200M intervention fund. Who within the film industry can access it? It is a major challenge because there is no track record. When the big people who are prolific in Nollywood go to access the money, the first thing they will ask them is how many did they sell? Who are their distributors? When people said we don’t want this, I said to myself, there is little a regulator like us can do because we are not like the CBN. People said I should do like Ernest Ndukwe did when he was in NCC or like Soludo did with CBN. The creative industry is fundamentally different.

The factors of production are not with us. No one comes to us to get a license to make a movie so we won’t even know when movies are being made until they are finished. Even today, I am sure there are people making films. But there is a banking industry, you can’t open a bank unless you get licensed. It is not the same thing with us. In the telecom industry, you can’t start selling mobile phones or set up a mast without getting a license. The film industry is not the same thing. I don’t even think there should be a law that says you must get a license before you make a movie. I think filmmaking is a freedom of speech thing. No one should tell you not to speak unless you have gone to see the Director General. If you have done it and there are repercussions about it, you should be able to pay the price. I should be able to speak freely, if I slander or libel someone, then I should get punished for it; that’s how the film industry should operate.

 Did you try enforcing the Distribution Framework?

When the filmmakers kicked against it to the extent that they did, I let them decide how they want to operate and then we pushed back and do the other work we were doing because I knew that after a while, this same people will come back to say now they need it. That is what is happening now because everywhere I go people say I should have done more enforcement. We can’t enforce something that we don’t have control over. We don’t have control over production. There is no way we could have enforced such a thing unless we became a communist state. It is not possible. Those were the challenges. No one can deny that we did what was necessary and I don’t apologise for doing the things that we did in that sense because the truth of the matter is that, the failure of other agencies or perhaps other institutions or even the system itself to correct itself meant that we at the Board were at the very centre of all the problems in the industry 

How is that?

Because if there is a bad film out there, people say it is the Film and Video Censors Board. if there is piracy, people will blame the Board, if there is not funding, people blame us but the end result was what people did, and it was something that we had to care about and that is why I stooped to do some of the things we did. 

Including the Nigeria in the Movie project?

Yes. The things we did essentially meant I was worried about the image of the Nigerian film industry, I needed it to have more exposure, to have a lot more positive profile and so we put together the Nigeria in the movies road show, because I felt the industry needed exposure. It was the role of government to do that. You can’t expect the individual filmmaker to do that. It is the role of government to identify about three of four good films in a year and give them promotional support, either the Tourism Bureau or the Film Commission or the Film Corporation should suggest that, if you are going to Cannes or other film festivals - you should push those films. I don’t regret doing it because I think if I hadn’t done it, it would not have been done. Someone needed to do it. I still believe that we didn’t do enough.

Those are the things I thought we should have done more. We should have been more aggressive in taking Nigerian films and filmmakers to countries in Africa. Nigerian films are actually popular but it is popular by accident. There has to be a strategy around it and there has to be a business around it and I think those are the things that we need to do. The truth of the matter is whether I am there or not, it has to be done. If it is not done, we would keep suffering the negative consequences of what we need to do. That is how other countries do it.

Would you say that the idea of states having their own Censors Board is complimentary in a way or another of such irregularities?

I think it was a major distraction. Kano State was the first to start it sometime around 2004 which was before I came. I remember that when I joined the Board, the guy who used to head the Kano State Censors Board was absorbed and started working with my Agency. I can understand the disposition of the state to setting up  film and video censors board because it doesn’t appear to them and rightly so in so many respects. There is no direct relationship with the national body even though the Board is by law supposed to be the national body looking after the interest of all of us. What has happened is that because the states were not feeling it, to put it quite frankly, they decided to set up theirs.

That is one level. Of course we also have the religious and the political aspects in certain parts of the country. I would say that there is some understanding that I feel towards the states not being a part of this national body. When I came, one of the things we decided to do was to establish what we call a dialogue with the state government and the program was called Shared Responsibility which boils from a similar situation that they have in Australia. 

You have never hidden you disposition to the proposed Motion Picture Practitioners Council of Nigeria (MOPPICON). Why do you think it would not necessarily give the desired change?

I don’t think that addressing the film industry in Nigeria can be best dealt with through an act establishing the Motion Pictures Practitioners Council in its current shape and form which would be a council that is regulatory for the practitioners. It would be a council that would be appointed by the President and reports to the Minister or the President. The film industry is a very unique industry. I think a lot of people are suffering from a viral misconception of what the problem of the film industry is. Majority of the problem of the film industry will not be solved by MOPPICON.

Let me describe it this way. If you say the problems is that there are quacks in the industry, because I hear that a lot, the truth of the matter is that a film industry, as distasteful as it may sound, is an industry by its nature that admits quacks, that is open to quacks. That is what it is. It is a freedom of speech thing. Every one of us should be free to speak. Some of us speak like Soyinka, some speak like Emeka Mba, others speak like bus conductors, but we should all be free to speak. There should not be someone telling me that I must get a degree or I must have practiced for five years to speak. 

Is that what the draft is all about?

Yes. I have seen. If you are regulating how the industry will be structured, I have no problems with that. But in a situation where by you want to regulate the individual’s entrant; what they should do and not do; what qualifies them and what does not….

In any case, technology has moved so off the road that it makes it superfluous. The attempt to regulate makes it impossible.

We have to realise that. I gave so many examples. The kind of narrative that would be told tomorrow will not necessarily be by the people who are the current filmmakers. James Cameron did an experiment with Avatar and everybody was happy, but a bulk of the work was done by animators, by geeks on the computer screens. What would you call those people tomorrow? The people who are designing software that doesn’t require an actor, what would you call them tomorrow? That may seem farfetched but what would you call animators? What would you have called a Walt Disney?

 The Yoruba Video and Film Producers/Marketers Association of Nigeria organized a workshop recently where you were given an award, what do you say to this parting gift?

You know, in all my years as DG of the Board, I have received several awards, but none had touched me the way this one did. Perhaps for the fact that it came from a former enemy, so to say, I feel good that some of the ideals I had preached to them were now being understood and applied. When I looked at the topics of the workshop and the facilitators they ha engaged to discuss the issues, I smiled to myself because these were the things I had been talking about- they had talks on Insurance, Digital Marketing, Distribution, Import of Nollywood movies in Diaspora, Piracy etc. These are essentially the things I have been telling the practitioners to consider over the years, if we must have a structured and progressive film industry.