Fidelity Bank plans financial seminar for Nollywood

Fidelity Bank Plc is planning to organise a seminar on personal financial management for stakeholders in the entertainment industry.
According to its Managing Director, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo, who disclosed this Tuesday in Lagos as a moderator on Fidelity SME Forum, aired on Inspiration FM radio, the bank would hold a seminar at the end of the broadcast series where experts would speak to young entrants in the entertainment industry, exchange ideas and share knowledge about relevant issues.
“We’ll talk about personal financial management; we’ll talk about the value chain of the entertainment business,” he said.
The talk show guest, Mr. Richard Mofe Damijo, a veteran Nollywood actor and former Commissioner in Delta Sate, canvassed private sector partnership to move the industry forward.
According to him, if private sector can look at show business as a business and begin to get their people to study and look at how and what models could be used, it would go a long way to bail the practitioners out of poverty.
He explained that if there was complete collaboration between the entertainment industry and the private sector, and the private sector took as much time as it did for agriculture or technology, the industry would grow faster than it is doing presently.
He lamented that the private sector has not looked at the business aspect of entertainment industry critically, saying that people in the entertainment industry have taken care of the show part of it. His words: “We don’t need a Basket Mouth to sell the Wembley Arena before you guys can come in. We don’t need the AY Show to cause traffic or mayhem in Eko Hotel for you guys to realise that there is plenty of money there. You don’t need the Wedding Party to make N460 million and above before you know that we need more cinemas,” he said.
“So I put it to you, like lawyers would say, that imagine a country where with less than 50 cinemas a film goes ahead and makes N450 million. Just imagine 100 cinemas alone in Lagos at N2 or N300 million per cinema. If private sector can look at show business as a business and begin to get their people to study and look at how and what models can be used, it would go the way it should.”
In his advice to upcoming talents in the industry, Damijo said: “What I usually advise younger people is to read-be voracious in your reading and try to diversify as much as possible, but just stay connected within the art. Consume as much literature as you can, and as much business news; as much soft technology news as you can”.