Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed this week called in Abuja when he received India’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Abhay Thakur, on a courtesy call to his office.
Mohammad the Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture said, “I think Bollywood is probably the biggest film industry in the world, closely followed by Nigeria, but while we are proud of what Nollywood is doing in terms of content, I think we still need to do more in the area of technicality and technology and I think this in one area that I would want us to concentrate on in our bilateral relationship.”
He added, “I want India to avail Nigeria of the opportunity to train not just our budding producers and film directors, cinematographers and the like, but probably if India can stretch its hands of friendship to our Film Corporation, especially the Film College in Jos, so that they can improve the technical quality of our films. I still believe that in the area of content, we have very rich content, very fecund imagination but I think in terms of the quality of the films, we still need to do much more and I don’t think there is a better place we can look forward to than India for this,”.
He required help from India to build the capacity of Nigerian cultural leaders, as well as scholarships for Nigerians in areas related to culture. In his comments, Ambassador Thakur declared that the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is organising outreach visits for a small group of Nigerian journalists to expose them to specific commercial events in Africa, India, to extend ties between the two countries.
Source: NexTVAfrica.com.
