Pornography Takes Over Nollywood

In recent times, there’s been an increased concern as pornographic movies seem to have taken over Nollywood. If you are an ardent follower of the recent trends in Nollywood flicks, you would have noticed the increase in the degree of nudity portrayed in some of the recent Nollywood releases.

Until recently, Nigerian actors have been very conservative when it comes to showing sex and nudity on camera. Well, not anymore.

The more daring acts were left to Ghanaians as they were considered bold enough to engage in sexually suggestive roles. This sort of paved the way for the popularity of Ghollywood movies in Nigeria as Nigerians, out of curiousity patronized Ghanaian films just to see how far they were willing to go with the obscenity.

Now, Nigerians don’t need to look any further as some Nigerian actors have taken the trend a notch ahead off the Ghanaians with the releases of hardcore porns, some of which included Room 027, Destructive Instincts, Bold 5 Babes, The Benjamins, Bedroom Assassins and Taboo.

Interesting also is the fact that gay movies too are being experimented upon. Two examples are Pregnant Hawkers and Sinful Act 1&2 as well as a Yoruba movie, titled, Lesbian.

The most prominent of these hardcore porn movies is Destructive Instincts, produced and starring Nigerian born American actress, Judith Okpara popularly known as Afro Candy. In the movie, Afro Candy plays the role of a seductive mistress with a steamy sex scene where a male actor was grappling her bare breasts and buttocks.

Her boldness and confidence about her act was attested to when she announced on Facebook for actors who could do nude roles and are interested in being a part of her production to get in touch with her.

Some would say that this current trend is a degradation of values that we hold as Africans. "This will tell you how much our values have been lost in the name of civilization. A decade ago, that kind of movie will be heavily criticized, but now, people are buying it off the streets and watching it online", said an observer.
During investigation were found out that these movies have not gone through the certification and classification of the Nigerian Film and Video Cencors Board (NFVCB), a body that is supposed to censor and classify every movie released in Nigeria.

When contacted via telephone, the Deputy Director, Corporate Affairs of the NFVCB, Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi said that combating proliferation of these movies has been difficult as their jurisdiction does not cover movies released online. "Our mandate is only limited to classified movies that are going on the television and on the satellite pay channels. We really have a big challenge dealing with those contents that are being posted online".

Commonly, the NFVCB is supposed to screen them before public consumption, but Abdullahi says the producers sometimes try to outsmart the board by submitting edited versions. "Sometimes what they present to us are edited versions and go on to release the uncensored versions. We have already mastered that tactics, and so we outsmart them by going to the markets to check for ourselves what they actually released and we ban the movies, arrest or prosecute the producers", Abdullahi added.

The producers increasingly rely on the internet as a means of promotion and ensuring these movies reach as wide an audience as possible. Some of the films run full-length while cuts have been taken from some of them and pasted on YouTube as trailers.

Unfortunately, most young people have unchecked access to the internet, so even if the board can protect them from acquiring the hard copies on the streets, how are they protected from online viewing?

President of the Association of Movie Producers, Zik Zulu Okafor while agreeing that the online platform needs to be checked stated that the producers may need to question the objectives of such movies. "As much as we every writer, actor or producer has a right to expression, it is only proper that we maintain and uphold our values as Africans", Okafor said.

In their defense, the actors have sometimes pointed at globalization and desire to meet international standards as a motivation for concentrating on this feature. Collins Onwochei for instance, who stars along side Tony Umez in ‘Room 027‘, says that the movie isn’t a pornography but mere professionalism on the part of the actors.

Onwochei, who in one of the scenes was engaged in a steamy sex cut with an actress, told our reporter, "I’m shocked that calls are coming from all around the world to say it’s a porn movie. I keep saying that you guys are hypocrites. You are asking me why was the guy and the girl naked, but have you seen the entire movie? Same people that watch all episodes of Spartacus in the comfort of their living room and nobody gives a hoot about it".

A movie critic, Gbenga Akilo in his reaction said that this nudity isn’t exclusive to movies alone. "You are talking about Nollywood movies, have you seen the music videos of the so-called music artistes with sexually suggestive dance moves and almost nude dressings? We have a serious problem at hand".

Respected Nollywood producer and director, Chico Ejiro who seems to be indifferent to the trend tells NET, "I really can not dictate to another producer what he should or shouldn’t do. If that is the kind of movies that he could rather make than morally upright movies, that’s his choice".

The question that begs is, aren’t there ways to enforce some form of penalties on these producers by the guilds?

President of the Lagos Chapter of the Actors’ Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Victor Osuagwu maintains that the guilds have always advice their members against productions that will tarnish the image of the country. "I am strongly against making sexually erotic scenes in movies. This is a new administration as you can see, and we have resolved that we would do our part to ensure some level of sanity in the industry.

"I see it as a desperate attempt by practitioners to gain quick attention and hopefully climb up the ladder using controversies as a tool. Do you know any popular actor, actress, producer or director that is making any of these hardcore porn movies? The truth is, sometimes our society may frown at it on the outside, but they seem to be fascinated in secret".

Nollywood is unarguably one of the largest film industries in the world in terms of number of annual film productions. An approximately $250 million movie industry beaming Nigeria to the rest of the world is fast becoming one of the country’s biggest employer of labour.

Sexually illicit representations were before seen as the demeaning derivative of the decadence in the moral values of the West and recently in the movies of neighbouring West African country, Ghana. Now the infectious trend has surfaced in Nollywood with little or nothing the authorities can do about it’s proliferation