The Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Uzamat Akinbile-Yusuf has assured practitioners in the creative industry of government’s continuous support towards enhancing their skills while also boosting the tourism potentials of the State.
The Commissioner reiterated this at a stakeholders’ meeting with members of the creative industry, comprising those in the film, arts, and entertainment sectors on Tuesday, at Alausa, Ikeja.
According to her, the meeting between the government and the stakeholders in the film and creative sectors became imperative so as to develop a more coordinated relationship with the practitioners whom, she said, are very vital to boosting the image of Lagos State and by extension its tourism potentials.
She remarked that “the creative and entertainment industry is very critical in the tourism sector. It is a sector that can rebrand and market Lagos to the outside world and project the State Government’s policies, plans, and programmes as enshrined in the T.H.E.M.E.S Agenda of the present administration. So, the State government needs this sector as much as the sector needs the government. It is a Win-Win situation for the two parties”.
Akinbile-Yusuf noted that the private sector needs to take ownership and invest massively in tourism development, hence the need to rub minds and share ideas on how to move the sector forward with one of the key stakeholders in the sector.
“The best thing we can do as the government is to operate an open-door policy whereby the practitioners can share ideas, contributions, and recommendations to move tourism forward, while the State government as a regulator can look at the best way to assist and improve the sector”, she asserted.
The Commissioner maintained that going forward more success stories will be recorded in the creative, arts, and entertainment industry more than ever before with the relationship that has been created as a result of the meeting, assuring that bottlenecks impeding the growth of the sector will be examined.
Also speaking at the meeting, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Tourism, Arts and Culture, Solomon Bonu said the State Government will consider some of the recommendations reached during the meeting for implementation while appealing to the filmmakers to change some of the negative narratives being portrayed in their films.
“Filmmakers have the power to influence and change behaviour through their scripts and storylines, as a result of this power in their hands, we want them to redirect the focus of their films to correcting some attitudinal issues in our society like flooding and other environmental nuisances”, he added.
Participants at the meeting expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the deliberations and expressed the determination of the creative sector to give the government the necessary support to boost the image of the State.
They also appealed to the State government to make laws that will further protect the content of the creative industry from piracy, stressing that those behind the unlawful acts are bent on killing the industry and reaping where they did not sow.
Some of the participants at the event include members of the Actors Guilds of Nigeria [AGN], Directors Guild of Nigeria [DGN], Theatre and Motion Picture Association of Nigeria [TAMPAN] as well as stakeholders in the Entertainment and Arts sector amongst others.
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