The Minister of state for Information and Communication Technology, Alintuma Nsambu has said that Nigerian movies have become a very big item on the Uganda entertainment and social scene.
He says because of the popularity of Nigerian movies, many TV stations in Uganda are broadcasting Nigerian movies, some on daily basis.
Speaking during the Satellite TV Broadcasting session of SatCom 2009 conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nsambu said if a politician put up a radio or TV show during time when Nigerian movies are aired, the majority of the people would not listen to the politician because of the huge interest in Nigerian movies.
Nsambu was contributing to debate in support of those who hailed the growing role of Nollywoood in showcasing African culture through their movies as noted by a recent UNESCO report on the global film industry.
He says many people are able to identify with the stories of movies produced by Nollywood, (as the Nigerian film industry is called).
The report among others credited Nigerians for making that are channels for cultural expression and allowing Africans to tell their own stories.
The report, a result of a global cinema survey conducted by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) showed that Nollywood is fast developing in movie production, becoming the second biggest movie producing industry.
According to the report, Nollywood which produced 872 feature-length films production was 2nd only to Bollywood ( India’s movie industry) which produced 1,091 feature-length films in 2006 compared to 872 productions (in video format) from Nigeria’s film industry. Nigeria has thus surprised Hollywood of the United States which produced 485 major films.
The UNESCO report shows that other leading film producers were Japan (417), China (330), France (203), Germany (174), Spain (150), Italy (116), South Korea (110) and the United Kingdom (104) though none of them is having the effect and popularity that Nigerian movies is having in African countries.
