the role of film in brand, branding, rebranding, and international ...

Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review (OMAN Chapter) Vol. 2, No.3; Oct. 2012
colonial government, under the CFU, were designed and programmed to achieve political gains,
in line with the imperialist and overriding interests of the colonial government, to the detriment
of the colonised people, whose culture and life were somewhat obliterated, negatively altered,
and partially Europeanised.
In 1947, the Federal Film Unit (FFU) was birthed, resting the CFU thereafter on the bedrock of
insignificance and extinction. The Federal Film Unit grew on the debris of the CFU, but the
direction and functions of the FFU was in no respect different from that of the CFU. 1979
witnessed the birth of the Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC), which metamorphosed and
morphed with time, to face the challenges plaguing the growth of the film industry in
independent and now sovereign Nigeria, which was in dire need of indigenised, domesticated,
and postcolonial cinematic products that will extinguish the colonial and mental epidemic
bequeathed on the now independent state and her citizenry.
With colonialism rested in the dungeons of antiquity, foreign films and film makers, especially
those from China, Honk Kong, and United States still dominated the cinematic scene, despite
the windows of opportunity opened by the Indigenisation Decree of 1972, fashioned to allow
Nigerians takeover the controlling heights and upper echelons of the film industry, partly
because the Nigerian film makers were ill-prepared for this gargantuan role, and also because
they lacked the financial muscle to compete with their rivals from India, China, United States,
and England, especially the Anglo-American film makers, who enjoyed the privilege of
screening their films free of charge in mobile cinema units scattered over the country. So
prominent was the dominance of the Nigerian film industry and market by foreigners and
foreign films that patriotic Nigerians like Afolabi Adesanya, not only noted it, but were forced
by their amazement to bring this malady to public consciousness, moving thereafter to
positively address it. 4
Various attempts by Nigerians to take their destiny in their hands and venture into the film
industry at this embryonic stage of film development in Nigeria recorded dismal results, as
producers like Ossie Davies (“Kongi’s Harvest”), Late Chief Herbert Ogunde (“Aiye”), Chief
Francis Oyadele (“Bullfrog in the Sun”), etc, were put into bankruptcy and severe indebtedness. 5
In fact, film producers like Adeyemi Afolayan ( while producing the film “Destiny”), got into
financial quagmire, as a result of a negative tilt in the exchange rate of the Naira to the Dollar
then, but he managed to repay the loan he acquired to finance the film, though not without
overstretching his financial muscles and that of his patrons. 6 The jinx of financial crises
plaguing the Nigerian film makers was finally broken, when Afolabi Adesanya (then a tyro film
producer, but today a guru in the film making industry), riding on the sturdy horse of A-
Productions, and powered by a deep understanding of the fashionable culture and the prevailing
mercantilist appeal, produced a film “Vigilante”, from loans secured from H. Aderibigbe and R.
Aggrey (who financed the film), as well as KMG and Afribank, which financed the marketing.
“Ose Sango”, another movie from the stables of A-Productions was financed jointly by Wema
Bank and Rims Merchant Bank. 7 From this point, more Nigerians recorded giant strides in film
production, while those that could not cope, relocated to video segment, which has been
geometrically exploited, with many positive and outstanding accompaniments to show for it.
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