With the easing of the lockdown order in Nigeria, the government has initiated some programmes to assist various industries that are worst hit by Covid-19 pandemic.
One of such industries is the creative industry, which has been virtually dead due to the outbreak of the pandemic and the measures adopted to check the spread of the virus. These measures resulted in the lockdown of the cities and this affected the Nigerian creative industry.
But Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has taken the initiative to rebound the creative industry from the effects of the novel pandemic.
In his virtual inauguration of the Post COVID-19 Initiative Committee on Tuesday in Abuja, the minister charged the members of the committee to recommend measures to save jobs, lives and reposition the industry to take its rightful place in the Nigerian economy.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Creative Industry is a very critical sector of the nation’s economy and a major plank of the economic diversification policy of this Administration. It creates the highest number of jobs after agriculture, especially for the youth.
“It is therefore imperative for us to have a collective and government-supported approach in dealing with the immediate, short and long term economic stimulus and initiatives for the industry, in order to mitigate the effect of the pandemic on the sector,” he said.
Mohammed disclosed that the members had been expanded to include as many sectors as possible to ensure a fair representation of more sectors in the industry.
He assured that, while the committee could not accommodate all members of the industry, all members would benefit from its work and implored the entire industry to support the committee to rebound the industry.
“Covid-19 pandemic has impacted negatively on the nation and the Creative Industry has been particularly hard hit, considering the fact that it is an industry that has people-interaction at its core.
The minister gave the terms of reference of the committee as the assessment of the expected impact of the pandemic on the industry in general, advise the government on how to mitigate job and revenue losses in the sector as well as create succour for the industry’s small businesses.
The 22-member committee is chaired by Ali Baba, representing the Comedy, Film and TV sub-sector, while Hajia Sa’a Ibrahim of the Broadcasting Organisations of Nigeria is the Vice Chairman and Anita Eboigbe is the Secretary.
GIK/APA