VIDEOS IN MOTION - fasopo

corrupted and to use the distribution framework as a way to put its hands on the lucrative videobusiness. As a result of this tension, in the first months after the framework was approved a violentclash took place between the marketers and the Censors Board, leading to the arrest of somemarketers and, in response to that, to a legal procedure against the Censors Board (Akpovi-Asade2008 and 2009). The violence of the clash was extreme, and it was the consequence of the conflictexisting between the different ways of conceiving of the Nigerian economic development that Ihave emphasized at the end of the previous chapter. Two members of the Censors Board staff werekilled, one in Makurdi and the other one in Niger State, and others were stabbed and injured(Ajeluorou 2009).After a few months of tension, the Censors Board staff managed to quieten the conflict with theindustry’s practitioners, and a number of influential distributors and video renters enrolled for thelicense. Unfortunately, their acceptance of the framework did not make their ventures’ economicsituation improve, and they progressively became suspicious toward the real applicability of thenew system. As Francis Onwochei, a Nigerian successful director and producer and the member ofnumerous industry’s practitioners’ associations, has emphasized, the new framework “needed theold one to die in order to be able to work” (2010). And the fact that not all the industry’spractitioners accepted to enrol progressively compromised the efficacy of the new system. InOnwochei’s words,because the new framework is enforced by a government agency, the people that havecreated it don’t care if it doesn’t work immediately. Its efficacy does not have an impacton them.... but for the practitioners this is the problem, because if you come in and erasethe old system you have to propose something that works immediately, otherwise youmake everybody run out of business (2010).The incompatibility between formal and informal distribution systems made the two of thembecome ineffective, practically bringing the Nigerian video economy to a standstill. Three of themost influential characters of the industry, Amaka Igwe (2010), Lancelot Oduwa Imasuen (2010)and Don Pedro Obaseki (2010) have emphasised during interviews that – after the initialmisunderstanding – they supported the framework, but today the lack of results has made themprofoundly critical. The most common complaint is that the framework has been designed at aninstitutional level, without consulting the protagonists of the industry. Thus it resulted in top-downaction which does not sit easily with a very complex and informal context like the Nigerian one. As70