‘ Why Northern contents are not thriving in creative landscape’

ABROADCASTER and film producer, Daniel Aboki, has adduced reasons why Northern contents are struggling to compete fa vourably in Nigeria’s creative landscape.

The a ward- winning film maker said despite the untapped resources to show case the rich Northern heritage in the creative industr y, practitioners find it difficult to take advantage of the vast opportunity.

Citing knowledge gap, dearth of manpower, technolog y and technical deficit as major obstacles, Aboki stressed the need for urgent scale- up of film production in the North to level up with modern trend.

Aboki highlighted that the glaring predicament is evidenced in about $ 175 million NETFLIX spending in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa between 2016 and 2022, with no dime coming to the northern part of the country.

The film- maker spoke in Kano at the weekend during the premiere of ‘ Mai Martaba’, an epic movie showcasing the unique Northern ro yal dynasty, which he directed and produced.

His words: “The industr y in the North has not been able to compete with the trend of modern film- making techni - cally. That made us think there is the need to scale up , and that was what we did.

“We scaled up production, in terms of production value, equipment type, because we know that in the creative value chain of film production, there is so much money to be made for y oung people in the creative space.”

On the production of the new epic film, Aboki said the video was intentional crafted with huge resources on modern technology to compete glob - ally.

The producer reminded that despite the enormous chal - lenges, ‘ Mai Martaba’ was able to push the Northern content and rich Hausa culture to global arena.

Aboki lamented that funding a movie of magnitude of sort is a major threat, considering the amount of technology and expertise required.

He added: “Yes, funding is a biggest challenge. The people in the North don’t even believe in the industry, and so every dime y ou spend will have to be y our hard- earned money. Nobody in vested a kobo into the production. And again, we are glad that nobody in vested their money, because they might not have the patience to wait for the gestation period of a film.

“This film has been on for two years and six months, from shooting to post- production, working on it round the clock, and okay, if it was somebody’s money, we can’t be able to sleep. This is an industry they don’t seem to understand, and so funding is the critical problem.”