Alhaji Adebayo Thomas, the Director-General, National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), says there is no film celebrating negativity and moral decadence with the board’s approval.
Thomas made this known to newsmen on Thursday at a two-day Roundtable for Heads of the Department of Theatre Arts with the theme: “Curricular Content for Film’’ in Abuja.
The meeting was organised by the NFVCB and Society of Nigeria Theatre Artists (SONTA)
The director-general said that when the board collected film for censorship, it looked at areas where there was justice and punishment for moral decadence in that film before its approval.
“Where there is no justice and punishment for moral decadence, we collect it for censorship but we will never approve it.
“Since 2017, I can confidently tell you that no film passed through us that celebrates negativity or moral decadence, we don’t,’’ he said.
Thomas said that parents, guardians, religious bodies, and media had a role to play when their children watched a film that did not pass through the board.
“This leads us to parental care. Moral and culture are the functions of parents.
“From that concept, the child grows up before government takes over his building, the way you lay your foundation, the way it grows.
“We are appealing to parents and guardians to look into the kinds of films that their children take and watch on daily basis.
“In our own period, after NTA news at 7 p.m., we go to bed. That was the way we were brought up but these days, parents buy expensive phones for their children and there is no parental guide.
“And we are in the days of technology, YouTube and unknown platforms pump in, these are things they access which is beyond our control,’’ director-general said.
According to him, religious bodies also have their functions. Though I’m a Muslim, I went to African Church Nursery and Primary school, Surulere, Lagos State where both morals and culture were taught.
“These are things that our children, even the adult ones both in churches and mosques are exposed to.
“We never taught about the prospect when we were going up, we taught culture, moral and well-behaved society. So, religious bodies equally have a lot of roles to play,’’ Thomas said.
Thomas said that media should instigate positive action to correct society and build the society in a good manner.
Prof. Sola Fosudo, the Head of Department, Theatre Arts, and Music, Lagos State University, said that the government should devise ways of curbing ritual killings rather than banning film with ritual content.
“If there is no ritual killing in a society, then it will not happen in the film. What film writers do is that they take from society and they give back to society.
“So, all the things you see in the film are a reflection of what happens in our society.
“What we need to do is to organise ourselves in such a way that there will be no ritual killing. Why ritual killings? it is because everybody is looking for money.
“So, the government needs to do some things different to curb the idea of looking for the money by all means,’’ he said.
Prof. Gowon Doki, the President of SONTA, said that the roundtable was to unbundle the theatre arts programme.
According to Doki, society is growing and if we must remain relevant in the society of today, we need to free our minds and open our space.
“So, we are trying to unbundle the theatre arts programme which has been B. A Theatre Arts all through. There are other areas of creativity that are so important to our growth and development today.
“So, if we unbundle the programme and we have a faculty of Creative Arts, it will give us able room to navigate where we bring in other allied courses that need specific attention such as fashion and modeling.
“That is why we are thinking of opening the Theatre Arts Programme into different areas that will attract specific attention for the growth and development of this profession,’’ he said.
