The Executive Director of the National Film and Videos Censors Board, NFVCB, Dr. Shaibu Husseini, has stressed that the board isn’t muzzling the creative industry as against what is being propagated on social media. In a session at the Lagos International Film and Cinema Convention, LIFACC, Shaibu stressed that the board has been working within the ambit of the Nigerian law and act that created the NFVCB.
“I am not in NFVCB to take filmmakers to court, please bring your films to us, we will classify, we will rate it and we want to have good relationship with our guilds and associations because these are the practitioners that keep us in job,” Husseini said. “We are not saying people should not smoke but we warn from the beginning of the film that people should not endorse smoking in any way. We must protect the society from what the laws of the land has prohibited.
“We will do our jobs as classifiers; we must express ourselves within the ambit of the law. We are open to learning, we are open to working with the industry, we don’t want to go to court or test the laws on any creative.” He also analyzed the skits which the NFVCB will classify and rate saying these are skits with theme, makeup, and other nitty gritty of films.
“We need to safeguard our youths, if we rate a film, then let it be our job to educate children on what to watch and what not to watch. “We should also moderate rituals in our films so that we do not preach to our youths that beheading or involving in rituals is the only way to wealth and success,” he added. Dr.
Shaibu also noted that some filmmakers get classification and rating then go back to add scenes that the censors board didn’t see during classification and rating. He stressed that it was an offence and would not be tolerated by the board henceforth. The session had several filmmakers and creatives including Ali Baba, Emeka Ossai, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, Joke Silva, Keppy Ekpeyong Bassey, Teco Benson, Corporate pictures boss, Alhaji Abdulrazaq, Francis Nwochie and several others in attendance.
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