Filmmaker Supports Ban On Smoking, Ritual Killing Scenes

Filmmaker and co-founder of Yabatech Film Academy, Abay Esho, has offered his opinion in support of the federal government’s recent ban on smoking, ritual killing and glamourisation of crime in Nigerian films.

Esho who believes the media to be an important tool for social engineering of any society, said a society cannot separated from whatever it’s been fed over a long period of time. 

Nollywood, he said ought to drive change by deliberately producing movies that set agenda, change behaviour and its viewers perception and way of thinking. 

The director’s statement is in response to the chief executive officer (CEO) of National Film and Videos Censors Board (NFVCB), Shuaibu Husseini, announcement of federal government’s approval of a ban on glamourisation in Nollywood films, last week, at the National Stakeholders Engagement on Smoke-free Nollywood in Enugu.

The ban, has triggered mixed reactions amongst Nigerian movie stakeholders who were vocal about their stance.

Esho whose views aligns with Husseini’s on ‘money ritual’ factor in Nollywood films, stressed that Nollywood is a major contributor to the epidemic ‘money ritual’ in present Nigeria, but the distrust of Nigerians in Africa owing to “what we portray in our films, especially the ones with money ritual theme.”

He, however, expressed reservations with the NFVCB’s CEO on banning of smoking in movies noting it’s be near impossible to do so. “It will be difficult to place a ban on smoking because if the story has a smoking character, how else do you expect (filmmakers) to portray that?”