Media central to changing Nigeria’s narrative – Conference

While various conferences have suggested different routes to achieving national branding, speakers at the ‘Building Africa’s reputation through Mediatainment’ conference laid the responsibility at the doors of the media.

Borrowing examples from the Western world, especially America which employs all forms of medium of communication including films, T-shirts, word of mouth, print and broadcast to project their positive sides, the speakers at the Innovention Series conference said the media and entertainment are core to changing Nigeria’s narrative.

Leading the discussion, Bolanle Austen Peters, founder of Terra Kulture believed that Nigeria can package its rich food, festivals, fashion and arts to international standard and  employing media to project them and Nigeria.

She regretted that Chinese, American, Indian and Brazilian foods and festivals are all over us while Nigeria has not been able to package its foods for foreign market.

While emphasising the importance of media and technology, Bolanle said Africans have for years employed oral method in passing history while the Western world has told our stories with distortions through mass media and technology, and this has been accepted as true to media consumers around the world.

“It is not possible to re-brand ourselves without the media. We need to use the media to project the country”, she said.

Also speaking, Bisoye Fagade, CEO of Sodium Brand Solutions said though Nigeria and Africa understand the role of media in changing the narrative but the same media is not appreciated. He said government and companies spend little in the same media for image projections and products.

Ramsey Nouah, a famous actor said there should be plan and strategy for changing the narrative and believed that government should provide the enabling environment for this to happen.

Speaking earlier, the convener of the conference and CEO of Verdant Zeal group, Tunji Olugbodi said Africa’s ignoble past as a continent ridden with corruption, poverty, human rights violations amongst others has started changing largely through entertainment.

He said entertainment sector valued at over $3.3 billion in 2014 is experiencing some challenges including revenue loss to piracy. He therefore said there should be concerted efforts to make the industry achieve its potential to contribute to building Africa’s reputation.

Daniel Obi