The 4th edition of NEC was full of drama. In a somewhat heated session at the Nigerian
Entertainment Conference ( NEC), moderated by CEO of TV 360, Deji Badamosi, where panelists Falz The
Bahd Guy and Bovi outrightly criticised the proposed
formation, by government, of a council to regulate the Nigerian
filmmaking industry, filmmaker Chris Ihidero added his voice
to the growing multitude saying ‘No To MOPICON .’but in a very rude manner....
While making his remark, Chris
said there wasn’t any need for the bill/council.
‘Nollywood does not need MOPICON. If it was beneficial,
someone would have thought about the idea previously,’ he
said.
Ihidero also pointed out that other world filmmaking giants
such as Hollywood and Bollywood do not have such
document and council thereby highlighting its insignificance to
Nollywood.
He went on to accuse the proponents of the bill of merely
seeking relevance because they are ‘old filmmakers.’
‘The fact that you’ve been around for twenty-one years does
not make you my ‘senior colleague”, he said.
He directed his argument rudely to a veteran filmmaker, Folarin Falana who earlier made a point out to clarify the reasons for the emmergence of MOPICON.
You will recall that last week, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed inaugurated a 29-man committee to review the
10-year old controversial document.