A committee chaired by veteran actor, Richard Mofe-Damijo, and eight other entertainment practitioners have been inaugurated by Lagos State to boost tourism and entertainment in the state.
The inauguration was performed by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu on Wednesday at the Lagos House in Marina during which he stated that intervention and schemes by the state Committee will boost and fund the sector most affected by the pandemic.
Other entertainment sector members of the committee include Tunde Kelani, Mo Abudu, Kunle Afolayan, Peace Anyim-Osigwe; while government representatives in the Committee are Adebukola Agbaminoja, Ferdinand Tinubu, Taju Olajumoke, and Mrs Funke Avoseh.
During his speech, Governor Sanwo-Olu said: “The scheme is to support creative ideas of movie and entertainment producers, who are constrained by funds to bring their concepts into reality. Applicants are to be supported with funding based on the financial plans of their projects, the grant may be as much as N40 million for each beneficiary.
“This is a signpost of all pockets of intervention we have created for the development of creativity and the tourism sector. This is with the belief that we can further raise the status of our creative output and commercialise the returns to a level where it can compete with Hollywood and Bollywood.
“We realised most of our film production experts and directors face a lot of funding impediments. We are intervening to close this gap and bring credible veterans who have the knowledge and have demonstrated capacity in the industry to drive this project,” Sanwo-Olu said.
Speaking further, the Governor added that the State carefully selected five key practitioners in the industry to lead, to be supported by four government officials to limit bureaucracy for the committee to achieve its objectives.
He said the state wants to create entertainment and tourism business leaders, who will use their creativity to enhance the market share of the sector.
“We want to support industry practitioners to raise capacity, support development of local content and discourage the action of taking proceeds from the industry out of the country, thereby denying local practitioners the benefits of their talents,” the Governor said.
Recall that the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu had in 2020, announced the approval of a N1 billion seed capital for investment in the tourism and hospitality sector in the state. The N1 billion seed capital is to help drive new growth in the sector.
