By John Hussein
Film makers are respected throughout the globe for their role in educating, entertaining and developing societies. Film is a tool used in many countries to resolve conflicts and bring about peace among war toned communities. It’s also a medium where historical facts are being kept for the future generations. Legacies of great men are kept alive using films and passed on to the coming generation.
On the other hand film is a tool that can be used in creating conflicts among nations or communities, is a propaganda machine that can deceive millions, it’s also an easy way to use for character assassination as we use to see in Hollywood for many world leaders especially Africans. It can be used to distort the truth, free criminals and blame the victims as well as making the bad guys the good guys. Above all it’s used as a soft war tool for developed nations against developing states towards achieving their goals.
The above two paragraphs is a choice for any film maker pending on his conscience but hardly you find one going for the second category especially when it comes to his own mother land. What we normally wetness is foreign film industries trying to create chaos to enemy states.
Nigerian film industry popularly know as Nollywood, third largest globally after Hollywood and Bollywood has contributed a lot to the development of our nation in one way or the other, popular actors and actresses RMD, Zark Orji, Kanayo O Kanayo, Hilda Dukoba, Pete Edochi, Shegun Arize, Kate Henshaw, Liz Benson, Ramsey Noah to mention a few are all respected not only in Nigeria but within the African continent. From the early nineteenth to date the industry keep a safe track concentrating mainly on entertainment and uniting the nation.
We are of course shocked by a recent film shooting at Enugu where the popular Islamic Movement in Nigeria and it’s leader Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky (h) are been badly portrayed, one wonders what is happening to the industry. Where are those patriotic directors, producers, actors and actresses who stand their ground to fight evil, corruption and dictatorship during Abacha as we witness in ‘Stubborn grasshopper’ movie despite all intimidation siding with the oppressed masses at that time.
My dear Nollywood film makers are you supporting oppressors upon the oppressed? Are you not aware of the one thousand plus innocent civilians, women and children inclusive killed on brood day light by the Nigerian military under Buhari? Did you nor hard the confession of the Kaduna state secretary to the JCI committee when he said they buried 347 shi’ites in a mass grave at Mando, Kaduna state? Are you not aware that Sheikh Zakzaky’s residence was attacked burnt and rase to ground using RPG and armour tanks for no reason what so ever? Did you not hear that Sheikh Zakzaky’s elder sister was set on fire while alive in a room during the attack, his three children killed by his own eyes, he and his wife shot severally and pictures snapped with military posing and smiling? Did you not know that from that day of #ZariaMassacre to date many of his followers are routinely killed by military or Nigerian police the recent was in Kaduna were six are gunned down for only practicing a religious right? Did you not watch a small clip where Nigerian police were setting their own patrol car on fire to frame the shi’ites later so as to justify the killings they intended to? Did you not watch the 8 minutes vedio report of the US-based New York Times on the Abuja shi’a massacre of 2018 where more than 60 shi’a Arba’een mourners where brutally murdered by the Nigerian army using heavy duty ammunition of 55mm caliber? Are you going to be part of the continuous torture, intimidation and killings towards these innocent Nigerians?
Lastly I call upon the respected professionals of Nollywood to address this issue immediately. "If you are not careful the media will make you side the oppressors against the oppressed" – Malcom X