op08_PalekerWanjala.pdf

7/30/2019 op08_PalekerWanjala.pdf

1/12

SOUTH-SOUTH

COLLABORATIVEPROGRAMMEOCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES

CODESRIA

Nigerian Video Films asCounter-Hegemonic?Some Exploratory Ideas

on Video Films in the Contextof African Cinema

Gairoonisa Paleker

CLA

#8


2/12

This paper was originally presented to the Summer Institute on International Hegemony and the South: A Tricontinental Perspective,

Havana, Cuba, 2005. The event was organized by The Arica, Asia and Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program, supported

by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

The opinions expressed in this document, which has not been submitted to editorial revision, are the exclusive responsibility o the

author and they do not necessarily agree with the position o CLACSO/CODESRIA/APISA.

Copyright 2008 The Arica-Asia-Latin America Scholarly Collaborative Program.

International hegemony and the south

ISBN: 978-987-1183-88-3

Patrocinado por

Agencia Sueca de Desarrollo Internacional

CLACSO

Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales - Conselho Latino-americano de Cincias Sociais

Av. Callao 875 | piso 5 J [recepcin] | C1023AAB | Buenos Aires | ArgentinaTel [54 11] 4811 6588 | Fax [54 11] 4812 8459

e-mail | web

Nigerian Video Films as

Counter-Hegemonic?Some Exploratory Ideason Video Films in the Contextof African Cinema

Gairoonisa Paleker

CLA#8


3/12

5OCCASIONAL PAPER SERIES

Nigerian video lms, which constitute an industry that has become known as

Nollywood, have taken not only Nigeria, but the Arican continent and the world

by storm. Their phenomenal success and reach are remarkable given the contexto origin and the poor technical and narrative qualities o the videos. The aim

o this paper is not to discuss the reasons or this success, but rather to raise

some ideas regarding the counter-hegemonic possibilities o video lms as a

preliminary or urther research and debate.

The paucity o scholarly work on Nigerian video lms is indicative o the rapid

pace at which this industry has grown and continues to expand. The most compre-

hensive work is a collection o essays ranging in discussion rom video antecedents

in Yoruba popular theater, culture and art in Hausa video lms to ethnicity, class and

gender. (Haynes, 2000). Other signicant contributions include those by Ukadike

(2003), Lawuyi (1997), Adejunmobi (2002) and Larkin (2004). Haynes and Onokome

(2000) and Larkin (2004) in particular touch on aspects o the subversive tendenciesand potentialities o video lms but provide little ocused discussion on the precise

manner in which video lms oer a counter-hegemonic potential.

Hegemony as understood in Gramscian terms implies not only dominance

(political, economic, cultural) o one social class over another, but importantly

also, the potential or struggle and confict. This potential or struggle is em-

bedded in the idea that hegemony operates on the basis o consent by the

dominated class. A characteristic o hegemony is that dominant ideologies are

packaged as being natural or common sense and thereore unquestionably

right. The result o this is consensus and consent. But this consent has to be

negotiated at all times because disparities in conditions o material existence

between the dominant and dominated classes are too transparent or long term

silence and acquiescence, hence the need to negotiate consent.

This paper suggests some ideas about the counter-hegemonic potential

o Nigerian video lms. In suggesting this counter-hegemonic potential, the pa-

per is not only arguing or a local context but also or a more global context in

which cinematic production and consumption is determined by the monopolistic

cinemas o both the West and East.

AfricanCinema

Political independence or large parts o Arica did not entail either economic or

cultural independence with regard to lm production. Deterrents to the estab-

lishment o a unctional and viable lm industry in large parts o Arica came in

the orm o lack o nances, inadequately trained technicians, oreign control o

production acilities, exhibition and distribution and the deployment o cinematic

language and techniques that were Euro-centric and thus largely alien to local

Arican audiences.


4/12

SOUTH-SOUTH COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMME

The question o an authentic Arican cinema has been a problematic one since

the earliest days oindependentcinema in Arica. Arican lmmakers and theo-

rists such as Med Hondo, Sembene Ousmane, Souleymane Cisse, Djibril Diop

Mambety, etc have oten condemned the infuence o the western world in the

development o a genuine Arican cinema. This involvement has been at a number

o levels; technical, nancial, market-related and, most importantly or these lm-makers, at the level o cinematic language and aesthetics, as it impacts on cultural

orms. One o the early concerns o lmmakers such as Sembene was the issue

o lmmakers being trained and educated in metropolitan centers such as Paris

and London, in languages and cinematic traditions which alienated them rom

indigenous languages and cultural and traditional practices. And the expressed

aims o many o these lmmakers was to produce lms which could be relevant

to local audiences, addressing issues o both local and national signicance in

post-independence Arica.

But as Murphy (2000) argues, questions o what is authentically Arican

(and authentically western also) are raught with problems. The debate around

authenticity, he argues, has to do with questions o cultural identity and criticalsubjectivity (Murphy, 2000). But cultural identities on the continent are many

and varied and representations o these in lm present not one unied Arican

world view but a multiplicity o world views. The concern o Arican lmmakers

as expressed at the second FEPACI meeting in Algiers in 1975 centered on the

question o Aricans lming Arica rom an Arican perspective and eschewing

cinematic codes o commercial, western cinema. The greatest challenge or

lmmakers in Arica, however, has been the question o mass support. While

most o these early lmmakers have consciously geared their conceptions o

an Arican cinema as well as their lms to an Arican mass audience, Arican

audiences have not responded in like measure. Arican cinema has thereore

never been a product o the Arican people, not in the same way as Nigerian

video lms are very expressly o the Nigerian masses.

Dening Arican cinema has been a preoccupation not only o Arican

lmmakers, theorists and critics, but signicantly also, a task that has been

undertaken by western theorists and critics. Historically, western conceptions

o Arican cinema have centered on the didactic messages contained in early

post-independence lms. Arican lm is viewed as Arican because it refects on

Arican conditions ollowing independence. This conception o Arican cinema

is problematic or a number o reasons. Firstly, it places early Arican cinema

on a continuum with colonial lm, especially in Anglophone Arica1. Secondly,

as argued by Mhando, it has ocused attention on content rather than orm,

thus negating any possibility or the development o auteurism along the lines o

development in European and, to a lesser extent, Hollywood cinema (Mahndo,2005). Thirdly, it ails to recognize the validity o an Arican aesthetics and orm

o cinematic expression.

Conceptions o Arican cinema are problematic or another reason -the

totalizing nature o the label itsel. Dening and categorizing all cinematic pro-

ductions rom Arica as examples o Arican cinema ignores the particularities

o national, cultural and linguistic signicance. It renders invisible the signicant

dierences in worldviews, social ormations and cultural fows represented in lms

rom dierent regions o Arica, thus perpetuating the stereotype o Arica as one

landmass and Aricans as one people without any distinguishing particularities.

The debate on aesthetics, content, orm and style continues to uel con-

temporary Arican cinema, which Mbye Cham (2002) believes is beginning to

1 Colonial flm policy towards Aricans was expressly ramed or a didactic purpose. See or example: Rosaleen

Smyth (1979) and David Kerr (1993) .


5/12


display a greater diversality. In other words, some o the contemporary Arican

lms exhibit a tendency towards greater variety o stories, styles, techniques and

themes. Some lmmakers are pushed toward stories presumed to be universal

either in content, reerence, inerence or implication, while others opt or the local

and the particular (Cham, 2002:3). Furthermore, there is a greater degree o

cooperation and collaboration between lmmakers across the continent which

could herald the beginning o Arican national lm industries with the potential

to coalesce into a continent-wide industry, no longer entirely dependent on

oreign unding.

How valid is this distinction between diversality and universality in cin-

ematic content, code and style, given the global nature o the contemporary

world? The philosophy o a global village, argues Mhando, is a western one

brought about by military and political conquest and maintained now through

communication and technological infuence (Mahndo, 2005:4). Within this

globalized condition, there is very little that remains specic and local, or even

unique to any culture and society.

I the economy, markets and nance capital are the engine o globaliza-tion, then according to Fredric Jameson, postmodernism is the cultural logic o

this orm o late capitalism and is thus the nal and complete incorporation

o culture into the commodity system. According to Homer, Jameson under-

stood postmodernism as a purer orm o capitalism which intensied the logic

and commodication o prior orms o capitalism. It marks the nal colonization

o the last enclaves o resistance to commodication: the Third World, the

Unconscious and the aesthetics (Homer, 2005).

Postmodernism as a periodizing concept signals the shit rom what Lyo-

tard has identied as grand universalizing narratives to a ocus on the more

parochial and local, creating space or Chams diversality. But the paradox o

postmodernism, according to Stuart Hall, is that the global now locates itsel

at the local and, in doing so, takes the local to the global while simultaneously

ostering an intensication o ethnic and national identities. In the search or more

global markets, multinational and nance capital packages itsel by appropriating

the identities and cultural mores o the specic society or country which it wants

to penetrate. This in turn leads to combative measures rom specic national

companies and societies which emphasize local and regional identities. But

these identities do not remain regional as they become packaged to be sold on

the world market. It is within this context o global nance and the universalizing

o cultural diversity that one has to locate the phenomenon o Nigerian video

lms in order to understand its counter-hegemonic possibilities, i any.

Ukadike (2003) argues strongly or an understanding o Nigerian (and

Ghanaian) video lms as comprising areal frst cinema which can compete withthe First Cinema o the western world on its own terms. He cites a number

o reasons, the most important being that video lms have been successul in

cultivating a domestic and diasporic Arican audience which has enabled and

assured its economic viability.

The SAP and Conditions of Crisis

This economic viability has come about despite, or i one accepts Ukadikes

argument, because o the economic ailure o measures such as the Interna-

tional Monetary Funds (IMF) imposition o the Structural Adjustment Programme

(SAP), which sought toregenerate the economies o countries such as Ghana

and Nigeria. Ukadike believes that with the colossal devaluation o the Ghana-ian cedis and the Nigerian naira, lmmakers in these countries were denied

access to hard currency with which to purchase lm equipment, raw lmstock,

etcetera. And that given these exigencies, video lm, as a cheaper alternative,

was a natural outlet or creative rustrations. Ukadike is correct to a certain point


6/12


in that the SAP seems to have laid the basis or the emergence o the video

lm. But his argument can be taken urther in that it was not only established

lmmakers who turned to video as a result o the devalued naira, but that the

conditions introduced by the SAP were conducive to the ormation o a parallel,

non-ocial economy based on private ownership. Video lms are a staple o this

parallel economy and have been the means or the entrepreneurial enterprises

o small and medium businesses and individuals who would otherwise not have

had access to ownership o any orms o media.

The oil boom o the Seventies pushed Nigeria into the world capitalist oil

economy, leading to concomitant changes in the domestic economy and society.

Oil production in Nigeria began in the early Sixties and by 1970 it was one o the

major oil producers in the world. In 1971, the Nigerian National Oil Corporation

was ormed within the broader national project o indigenization o the Nigerian

economy and industry (Beveridge, 1999:319). Between1972-1990, the Nigerian

government embarked on a process o indigenization in an eort to take control

o the economy and control private oreign investment. This process enabled the

compulsory transer in ownership o certain industries and economic practicesrom private oreign ownership to a mixed state and private indigenous owner-

ship. The aim o indigenization was not to eliminate oreign investment but to limit

it on the one hand, and on the other to increase the participation o Nigerians

in the economy.

Section Four o the Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decree (NEPD), 1972

listed advertising, media, gambling and retailing, among other economic activities

as wholly or Nigerians. In addition to these activities, the NEPD o 1977 made

urther additions such as lm distribution, newspapers, radio and television as

economic activities wholly reserved or Nigerians (Beveridge, 1999:309-314).

Indigenization, however, takes place within a political context o a military regime

ollowing two coup attempts and a civil war. The impact o this political instability

was that indigenization was not successul in transorming the economic landscape

o Nigeria. Economic activity and successul transer o ownership did not go much

beyond the Nigerian elites and associates o political and military leaders.

This, coupled with the depression o oil prices in the world market in the

Eigthies, saw a complete reversal o the indigenization process as more oreign

investment was sought to oset this recession. Talks with the IMF in early 1983

ailed due to a lack o consensus on key conditions such as the devaluation o

the naira, trade liberalization and the removal o subsidies on uel and other com-

modities (Lewis, 2005:82). A comprehensive Structural Adjustment Programme

was introduced in Nigeria in 1986, a year ater General Ibrahim Babangidas

assumption o power in August 1985. The SAP incorporated the key policies o

the World Bank and IMF and resulted in a 66% devaluation o the naira (Lewis,2005:82). Following an agreement with the World Bank in 1989, many activi-

ties ormerly reserved or Nigerians were opened up to oreign investment and

ownership. Thus, while ormal SAP ended in mid-1988, the Nigerian government

continued its commitment to key policies.

The devaluation o the naira as a direct consequence o the SAP impacted

on the lm industry in a number o ways. The opening up o the market to global

nance capital and increasing levels o privatization led to entrepreneurs buy-

ing up movie houses and converting these into warehouses, churches or other

places o business, thus shrinking exhibition opportunities not only or local but

also or oreign lms. At a more direct level, the devalued naira was not a strong

enough currency with which to purchase equipment such as cameras, raw lm

stock, hire huge crews or budget or lavish productions.

Filmmakers in other parts o Arica aced with similar conditions began to

look or alternatives. One redress action was the reinvigoration o the Panari-

can Federation o Filmmakers (FEPACI) into a more active body and lobby or


7/12


Arican cinema. Other initiatives included the establishment o the Union des

Createurs et Entrepreneurs Culturels de lArique (UCECAO), events such as the

Southern Arican Film Festival (Zimbabwe), and the Southern Arican Film and

Television Market (Sithengi, in South Ar ica) (Cham, 2002:2). These initiatives

have been aimed at increasing inter-continental collaboration and cooperation

between lmmakers, exhibitors and distributors and have been made possible

due to the political changes in various parts o Arica. The demise o apartheid

in South Arica and the end o Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO)

and the civil war in Angola have contributed to greater fows and exchanges

on the continent.

Nigerian lmmakers and entrepreneurs have, however, ollowed a dierent

trajectory and the prohibitive costs on conventional lmmaking have resulted

in lmmakers, businessmen and entrepreneurs turning to an alternative and

cheaper technology: video lms.

Nollywood

Nollywood, as this booming development in Nigerian cinema has come to be

identied, is worth approximately $45 million annually. Budgets or video produc-

tion can be as little as $4,000 and production time can be between ten days and

two weeks. A successul title can sell over 100 thousand copies, thus reaping a

prot o well over 1000%. Videos and VCD discs can sell or between 300 and

400 naira and there are a large proportion o stalls devoted to the sale o this

commodity2. That video lms are big business in Nigeria is evident rom Lawuyis

study o video marketing in Ogbomoso, a town in Kwara State, Nigeria. O the

young students interviewed about uture employment plans, 12% said that they

wished to ollow trade in radio and television repair which included a side business

o renting and selling video lms (Lawuyi, 1997:480). Fiteen per cent said they

wished to urther their education in the university, while 25% said they wished toollow careers in ashion design, and 40% wished to ollow trade in textiles.

The ambition o the 12% interested in the television and video business

was to own a camera and eventually make movies. These movies would be both

ctionalized, lmed dramas as well as lmed social and cultural events. In this

instance, video production goes beyond any notions o cinema and assumes a

more popular usage as recorders o signicant social and cultural events such

as weddings, unerals, naming ceremonies, etc (Barber, 1997: 359). This orm o

popular usage o the video lm is emblematic o what Lawuyi reers to as the big

man syndrome, where the bigger and wealthier the patron o the social or cultural

event, the greater the number o video camera men lming the event (Lawuyi,

1997:480-481). The number o cameras present may also depend on the number

o wives thebig man has, as each wie would want the ceremony recorded rom

her perspective with greater screen time to her relatives and riends.

Lawuyi argues that video production and signicantly ownership o video

cameras contains the potential or social and political mobility, orbig-manism

especially or those young Nigerians that come rom poor backgrounds. The

tension in Nigerian youth, argues Lawuyi, is between achieving big-manism and

achieving social and political transormation. Nigerian students and youth have

been at the oreront o demonstrations in key moments since independence

in 19603. Videos, in both the consumption and production process, are seen

as one aspect o political conscientization.

2 From: Arican and Caribbean Film Festival site.

3 See Beveridge and Lewis or discussion o student protests against the SAP.


8/12


At another and more important level, video technology is a tool or political

and economic empowerment at both the national and international levels. Larkin

(2000) argues that the rise o a video culture in Nigeria has been acilitated by

Nigerias integration into the world market as a result o the oil boom. This has

resulted in Nigerias inclusion in the global movement o nance capital, technolo-

gies, people and the cross-fows o cultural and other ideas and practices. And

ollowing IMF and World Bank dictates, it has also resulted in a highly privatized

public sphere, especially as regards the ownership o media. According to Larkin,

this has resulted in aradically new public sphere of media which is dened by

the privatization and diversication o ownership and access to media (Larkin,

2000:218). In this new public sphere, the state begins to play a minimal role

in both the ownership and consequently in the policy, content and ideological

decisions o the mass media such as radio, television and lm.

Signicantly also, this privatization o media has created new patterns o

production and consumption best exemplied by the video lm phenomenon.

For Larkin at least, [.] the social importance o the electronic media (including

video lm), the publics they create, the social worlds they make meaningul toNigerian audiences, the spaces o political and religious communication they

oster, are being ormed in arenas outside state intervention (Larkin, 2000:211).

This highly privatized and decentralized ownership o small media such as video

lm lends itsel to expressions o opposition to hegemonic control, in other words,

video lms contain the potential or counter-hegemonic expressions. This po-

tential, however, is denied by Arican lmmakers, theorists and political activists

who criticize video lms or pandering to and promoting mass consumerism

and generally ailing in the task o political conscientization.

Haynes (2000) identies Nigerian video lms as part o the popular arts or

popular culture. As a heuristic tool, this identication o Nigerian video lms as a

orm o popular culture or the popular arts acilitates analysis which, he argues,

has been disconnected rom classical Arican lm theory and criticism. The

converse o this o course is that Arican lm has not been considered a popular

art primarily due to its ailure to capture the Arican mass market. Some o the

inhibiting actors (which limit the access o Arican masses to both the production

and consumption processes) are the same historical actors decried by people

like Sembene. These include external unding and distribution monopolies and

technical and aesthetic knowledge not readily available to the Arican masses.

For Haynes, identiying video lms as a popular art orm allows or an

interdisciplinary approach to their study and analysis, bringing together social

history, cultural studies, anthropology and literary criticism. Arican popular arts,

they argue, is a broad category o cultural orms that occupy the interstices be-

tween the traditional and themodern-elite. Culturally syncretic, they unction asbrokers between the rural-traditional and the wider world rom which modernity

has been imported (Haynes, 2000:13).

Okome (2001) argues that video lms in Arica can be dened as occupying

an indeterminate place between television and cinema. Video lms or him are

an example o Aricas involvement in a dubious modernity. It is a pedestrian

art carried out by small entrepreneurial businessmen (Okome, 2001). Okomes

denitions imply a negative position or video lms and are thus consonant with

much o the criticism emanating rom Arican cinema practitioners who deride

video lms or their lack o artistic, technical and narrative merit. While some o

these views and criticisms may in themselves have merit, it is undeniable that

the reach and success o Nigerian video lms commands a revaluation on the

lines suggested by Haynes.

The versatility in the use o video technology has contributed to the col-

lapse o any distinctions between high and low art. Historically, Arican cinema

has been conceived, distributed and exhibited as artlms and thus limited to


9/12


the international estival circuit,art-house movie patrons and very ew Arican

audiences in Arica. This has been due to a number o actors, some o which

such as unding, content, and language and the conception o lm with a didactic

purpose have been discussed earlier. This art-house conception has removed

much o Arican cinema rom the marketplace.

In contrast, Nigerian video lms are o the marketplace and or the mar-

ketplace. The video lm industry is intended or and nanced (through sales) by

a local and diasporic Nigerian mass market. Nigerian lmmakers, according to

lmmaker Chie Eddie Ugbomha, are ree agents (Ukadike, 2005). They are

independent o both big nanciers as well as the state, and thus have the creative

license to raise any issue that will sell on the marketplace. Ugbomah believes

that lm is important because o its enormous impact on society, especially

given the huge and varied changes aecting societies in contemporary times.

He sees himsel as a social commentator as his lms deal with current events

and are a statement about societal issues (Ukadike, 2005).

It is this social relevance which has contributed in large measure to the

enormous appeal these video productions have among Nigerians. McCall (2005)identies it as a largely grassroots phenomenon, a olk cinema which is en-

tirely distinct rom any other cinematic productions either o Arican or oreign

origin. With the Yoruba domination o video production, it would not be wrong

to think o these video lms as derivatives o Yoruba popular theater. Accord-

ing to Ugbomah, the Yoruba have been able to lit the stage onto celluloid

(Ukadike, 2005:156).

This mass, popular appeal o Nigerian video lms persists despite the low

quality o the product. Production values, the speed with which the lms are

produced and the technology (video technology cannot compare by any means

to celluloid in terms o image quality) are actors in the low quality o the produc-

tions. Their popular success, thereore, has to be the result o something other

than production quality. Perhaps the answer lies in the thematic and narrative

content o the lms or the stars that have emerged, or the generic conventions

that video lms employ, or any number o combinations o these and other ac-

tors. The biggest consumers o Nigerian video lms are housewives who are

wealthy enough to own either a video or DVD player. The poorer o the society

watch these lms in video theaters, originally little more than a spare room in

someones house with video projection acilities4.

The widespread and successul reach o Nigerian video lms is largely

due to media piracy which, Larkin argues, is part o the organizational archi-

tecture o globalization, providing an inrastructure which permits media goods

to circulate (Larkin, 2004:289). For Larkin, video lms would not exist without

what he calls the inrastructure o piracy. Piracy has acilitated the existence andensured the reach o video lms in two distinct ways. Firstly, piracy operates as

a corruption o the communication inrastructure, thus allowing Nigerians with

no access to the ormal economy to create and operate a non-ormal, parallel

economy with global links to parallel economies in places such as Singapore

and Dubai (Larkin, 2004:295). This has led to a prolieration o media products

such as lms, music and religious sermons (local and international) which can

be duplicated on video and audio cassettes and distributed through ormal

channels, such as established outlets, as well as inormal channels, such as

travelling salesmen who take these products to much o rural Arica.

Nigeria, Larkin argues, is the largest market or pirate goods in Arica, with

estimates suggesting that up to 70% o the current gross domestic product (GDP)

is being derived rom this non-ormal economy. But rather than disempowering

4 Arican and Caribbean Film Festival site.


10/12


the state, this has instead recongured not only the state as he suggests, but

also traditional power structures at both the local and global levels. The decen-

tralized ownership o media (as evidenced in video production) is taken a step

urther within this shadow economy with the scale o distribution that piracy is

able to stimulate. I modern technology was part o the colonial mission to civilize,

then the introduction o video technology in post-colonial Nigeria especially, hasenabled Nigerians to become dominant media practitioners at a global level.

Secondly, piracy has stimulated and sustained the video boom at the level

o the technical and aesthetic quality o lms. Piracy o both western and Indian

lms in large numbers on video machines that degenerate the image and sound

quality o the lm has in a sense paved the way or low technical and aesthetic

value in even non-pirated media. Larkins argument is that piracy standardized

a particular quality o production which is borne out by the seeming agreement

o Nigerian producers and distributors that Nigerian audiences would not neces-

sarily pay higher prices or better sound and image quality (Larkin, 2004:303).

This is largely due to a culture of breakdown and repairwhere technology

as a culture is experienced in very distinct ways in Nigeria. Larkins contentionthat technology (in the orm o televisions, VCRs, telephones and even energy

supplies) oten comes to a grinding halt due to breakdown is borne out by

Lawuyis study discussed earlier, where the television and video repair business

was the occupation o choice or at least twelve percent o youth surveyed. As

a consequence o the devalued naira and economic disarray, Nigeria is the re-

cipient o second-hand, used technology originating rom Europe. Breakdowns,

expiration o parts, and consequent innovations in repairs and parts all contribute

to a cycle o breakdown and repair ultimately creating a culture o technology

that is inormed by the limits and utility o technology itsel. As Larkin argues,

this is a condition o both poverty and innovation (Larkin, 2004:305-306).

This innovation at the level o technology has however not replicated itsel

at the narrative level o the video lms that are produced. Nigerian video lms

are a broad category that includes Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, pidgin and English

language lms that are largely grounded in the ethnic communities rom which

they originate. Films in English have the greatest prestige and receive the widest

distribution outside Nigeria. Films are in most cases identiable on the basis o

thematic and narrative content. Romance dramas dominate Hausa lm produc-

tion, while melodramas are distinctly Yoruba and Igbo, and English language

lms are predominantly action packed (Larkin, 1997).

Thematic trends very oten pit tradition and modernity in an antagonistic

duality o the classic good and bad. Tradition in romance dramas is linked to

obedience to amily wishes in respect o marriage partners while modernity is

evil incarnated in individualism and independence. Linked to this tradition/mo-dernity dichotomy is the rural/urban divide where once again the urban center

is representative o the evils o modernity; greed, power, lust.

A strong component o most Nigerian video lms is a preoccupation with

the occult. Adejunmobi links this occult preoccupation with a quest or wealth.

The occult is very oten consulted and deployed in the search or wealth, power

and/or ame, and though characters may enjoy the ruits o their pursuit or wealth,

in many instances they come to a bad end in the lm. This, argues Adejunmobi,

points to a contradiction characteristic o contemporary Nigerian society; the

veneration o wealth and excessive consumption as well as the notion that wealth

corrupts and retribution will be dealt to the corrupt (Adejunmobi, 2002).

But whether through the use o occult orces or not, wealth and con-

sumption are a stock eature o most Nigerian videos and not only those in the

English language, as Adejunmobi argues. Nigerian video lms are maniestly

about aspirations, most requently aspirations or wealth and a lavish liestyle

(big-manism as discussed earlier), but also or love and happiness that nds a


11/12


suitable balance between amily and community injunctions and a conception

o individualism and independence o thought and action.

The progression towardsbig-manism, argues Barber, is a process o sel-

creation through real and imagined (viewed) displays o wealth and consumption.

According to her, Nigerian video dramas conceive the audience as a horizon

o consumption where what is consumed is the spectacle o others more con-

spicuous consumption (Barber, 1997:353). Home videos in their recording o

social and cultural events, are similarlyspectacles of consumption.

For Haynes and Okome, images o lavish liestyles and indiscriminate

wealth contain two possibilities. These are viewed rstly as expressions o a

middle-class vision o itsel and secondly, as a turbulent dream by and or

the masses (Haynes, 2000:79) It is possible that they believe this because

the Nigerian society is less rigid in class ormation and identity as compared

to European societies. This once again appears to be a consequence o the

oil boom o the seventies and the economic collapse and widespread poverty

o the eighties and nineties. This has created the potential or any Nigerian to

aspire to and attain enormous wealth, power and privilege.

Some Concluding Remarks

In this paper I have wanted to argue that Nigerian video lms do contain and

realize the potential or a counter-hegemonic cinema that is rooted in a very

specic society and culture. They are counter-hegemonic, not because they

may have broken with western hegemonizing cinematic codes, nor because

they display any creative genius in terms o an authentic Arican lm aesthet-

ics, but rather because they operate outside themarket, i.e., the global market

dominated by nance capital.

Nigerian video lms are an entirely independent entity. They are not nanced

either by private investors or the government. They are not bought by monopolycapital or the purpose o global distribution and exhibition. But despite this, they

are an economically viable product. The industry is sustained by domestic sales.

It has a global cinematic reach despite the lack o interest rom multinational

distribution and exhibition companies. This reach is due to the widely scattered

diaspora who take these video lms with them and who appear to replicate the

local marketing and exhibition conditions that prevail within Nigeria.

Bibliography

Adejunmobi, Moradewun 2002 English and the Audience o a Arican Popular Culture:

The Case o Nigerian Video Films in Cultural Critique, N 50.

Barber, Karin 1997 Preliminary Notes on Audiences in Arica inAfrica: Journal of the

International African Institute(Edinburgh University Press) N 67, 3. Accessed:

, 17 November 2005.

Beveridge, Fiona C. 1999 Taking Control o Foreign Investment: A Case Study o

Indigenisation in Nigeria in The International and Comparative Law Quarterly(London),

N 40, 2. Accessed: , 17 November 2005.

Cham, Mbye 2002 Arican Cinema in the Nineties inAfrican Studies Quarterly(Florida).

Haynes, J & Onookome Okome 2000 Evolving Popular Media: Nigerian Video Films,

in Haynes (ed.) Nigerian Video Films(Athens: Ohio University Press).

Homer, Sean Fredric Jameson and the Limits o Postmodern Theory. Accessed:, 17 November 2005.

Larkin, Brian 2000 Hausa Dramas and the Rise o Video Culture in Nigeria in Haynes,

Jonathan (ed.) Nigerian Video Films(Ohio).


12/12


Larkin, Brian 2004 Degraded Images, Distorted Sounds: Nigerian Video and the

Inrastructure o Piracy in Public Culture(New York) N 16, 2.

Lawuyi, Olatunde B. 1997 The Political Economy o Video Marketing in Ogbomoso, Nigeria

imAfrica: Journal of the International African Institute(Edinburgh University Press)

N 67, 3. Accessed: 17 November 2005.

Lewis, Peter 1996 From Prebendalism to Predation: The Political Economy o Decline in Nigeria

in The Journal of Modern African Studies(Cambridge), 34, 1. Accessed:

, 17 November 2005.

McCall, John C, 2004 Juju and Justice at the Movies: Vigilantes in Nigerian Popular Video

inAfrican Studies Review(Amherst), N 47, 3, December. Accessed: ,

13 November 2005.

Mhando, Martin, Approaches to Arican Cinema Study. Accessed:

Documents

op08_PalekerWanjala.pdf