On 12 January 2024, President Ahmed Tinubu appointed a journalist/lecturer, Dr. Shaibu Husseini as Director General/Executive Director of Nigeria’s world famous National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB).
A time tested movie critic, Husseini, who is one of the forces behind African Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), was brought in not only to strengthen the board’s enforcement of regulations, but to give its operations human face, which befits a board that operates in a civil environment. In these past two years, the cerebral professional has quietly recorded lots of positive results without controversy.
A journey of a thousand miles, they say, starts with a step and like a man who was prepared for the task that the President assigned to him, Husseini kicked off his voyage into the world of movie regulation with what he termed classification as against censorship when he assumed office on 6 March 2024.
To him, the word censorship is archaic, draconic and no more in vogue the world over. He believed that movies must be segmented into categories by way of classification, bearing in mind that the under 18s who behaves, believes and acts what they see and hear in movies and who form a larger percentage of movie viewers, must be protected by strengthening compliance, ensuring that films meet statutory standards so that audiences, especially young people are protected from harmful and unclassified content.
That major institutional priority has been achieved — that is the shift from censorship to classification of movies — has not only been achieved but it no longer takes ages for a movie to be classified unlike when it took the board months to censor a movie. Now, one can stay in the comfort of his/her living room and get his/her movie classified. Kudos to the Igalaman who has come with the new ideas.
From censorship to classification, Hussein noticed that our movies are replete with ritual, cigarettes and alcoholic scenes even when such scenes are not necessary. What did he do? He embarked on the journey of cleansing our movies of the unwanted ritual, cigarette and alcoholic scenes. To him, let us play down on such scenes. On this, he got the support of an Non Governmental Organisation that helped to take the no ritual, cigarette and alcoholic campaign round the country. And today, our movie producers are beginning to imbibe the culture of less ritual, cigar and alcohol scenes in their latest pictures.
Another gbosa for the man fondly call CJ. That is a story for another day.
Collaboration with stakeholders is one of the things he brought to bear in the work of the board and this has been responsible for the numerous successes he has achieved within the short period of two years he has stirred the leadership of NFVCB. Collaboration has remained at the heart of the many successes his regime has chalked up so far.
In the last two years, Husseini has also enlarged the coast and popularised the annual Peace Anyiam-Osigwe Nigerian Digital Content Regulatory Conference (PAO NDCRC) beyond expectations that even the late AMAA founder, Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, on whose memory the programme was founded, will be beaming with broad smile in her grave and saying a big thank you to the NFVCB helmsman.
PAO NDCRC was founded during the tenure of Alhaji Adedayo Thomas as the Director General of the board. The conference was established in 2021 as the NDCRC. It was later renamed the Peace Anyiam-Osigwe NDCRC in 2023 to honour the late filmmaker and industry icon, who died that year.
Husseini, has hosted the fourth and fifth editions of the conference and, like reggae music, which did not command global acclaim and was a local genre played in Jamaica until the Bob Marley surfaced on the scene and took it all over the world, PAO NDCRC was celebrated within NFVCB family and movie stakeholders. But today, it has become a national event that attracts speakers, eminent personalities and sponsors from unexpected quarters all over the nation.
In the last two years, it has shifted venues to important places like Four Points by Sheraton, and the prestigious MUSON Centre; thanks to Husseini’s spirit of collaboration and the believe that the venue makes an event. Today, PAO NDCRC is a major event to look forward to by creative people due to many innovations Husseini brought into it. Certainly, by the time Husseini is done with his tour of duty in NFVCB, things will definitely change for good for the board.
And as we may be gathering to toast to the many feats he has achieved within a space of two years, unauthorised uploading and streaming of films by unscrupulous persons still remains the biggest challenge that he is tackling and with the cooperation of stakeholders.
Given his focus and determination, he will definitely wrestle that to the ground.
