“I am sure that if you didn’t go to any journalism school, you won’t be a journalist. Same applies to being a doctor or a lawyer, you need to be member of a professional body before you practice.
“Come to my industry, anybody can just be put on camera or appear on stage and certainly as an actor or the producer. There is absolutely no check. This is why I said we are in the most prostituted profession.”
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The National Association of Theater Arts Practitioners (NANTAP), Lagos State chapter, has called for a regulated industry for creatives to thrive.
The executives of the association made the call during a courtesy visit to the Lagos office of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday.
The Interim Chairman of NANTAP, Lagos chapter, Mr Steph Ogundele, told NAN that practitioners should be under a body that regulates their practice.
He, however, frowned at the way non members and those who had no idea of how the industry operates, find their way to the screen.
“Government needs to help ensure that every practitioner is under a body that is to regulate their practice. Unfortunately, my profession is one of the most prostituted of all of professions.
“I am sure that if you didn’t go to any journalism school, you won’t be a journalist. Same applies to being a doctor or a lawyer, you need to be member of a professional body before you practice.
“Come to my industry, anybody can just be put on camera or appear on stage and certainly as an actor or the producer. There is absolutely no check. This is why I said we are in the most prostituted profession.
“There is no government check and that is why some of us are coming up to say this industry has to be regulated. We need to know our practitioners.
“We have overtime observed wrong representation of arts or culture as seen in a recent movie but who is to be held, when the production crew are not members of the association.
“These are some of the challenges that we face but we believe that we will overcome this with time and get our feet on ground,” he said.
Ogundele also called for a subsidised industry where practitioners can operate without stringent measures.
“All over the world, arts and culture are supposed to be subsidised by government. We represent a sector where the government’s policy plays a very important role in our outlooks and how we come up with our products.
“The conditions that abound for film producers in the country to cope with is usually not too favourable. Look at Bollywood and Nollywood and see the structural provisions for filmmakers.
“I should be able to practice my art. I should be able to enter any theater in Lagos and be able to put my play there without too much stringent measures,” he added.
According to him, there are so many associations in the cultural sector that are valuable to the industry but not having them under one body will only give room for charlatans whose works cannot be controlled or monitored.
He further revealed that the association had been advocating an umbrella body called Motion Pictures Practitioners Council of Nigeria (MOPPICON), which will help check cases of proliferation of associations.
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