Promoting national unity through entertainment

The entertainment industry, if properly harnessed, can play a major role in national unity. Football, for instance, though it is essentially sport, it is also entertainment and business.

So far, football has proved to be a uniting factor, not only among Nigerians but also on the global scene. Whenever Nigeria goes into any football competition, Nigerians bury their differences – religion, ethnic origins, political affiliations – and unite to cheer their team to victory. At such moments, all Nigerians are one.

Nollywood, the music industry, beauty pageants, and other forms of entertainment can also play a role. The larger population of Nigerians, over 60 percent, are youth, who are the major followers of trends in the entertainment industry.

Entertainment sites, perhaps, dominate the Nigerian blogosphere. Blogsites like LindaIkeji and BellaNaija are regular ports of call for the Nigerian youth.

Telecommunication companies and techpreneurs in the country are constantly exploring avenues to capture Nigeria’s youth bulge, especially through development of apps, most of which are entertainment-oriented. Apps like MTN DoBox, Nigerian Movies, BudgIT, Traclist, Efiko, Jobs In Nigeria, WeCyclers, Genii Games, Tradestable, Nigeria News, Easy Taxi, Ready Cash, and Mobile Money are getting more and more popular amongst Nigerians. These apps can be downloaded on android phones and devices, iOS and the new BlackBerry devices from the Google Play Store, App Store and Blackberry World.

The entertainment industry must cash in on this development and carve a role for itself in national development, apart from revenue generation. Already, Famford Enterprise Limited, a Nigerian company, is collaborating with Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and TV Enterprises (TVE), a subsidiary of NTA, to present Queen Nigeria 2014, a unique beauty pageant that seeks to foster national integration and raise moral standards in the country.

We agree with the organizers that by projecting a mix of selected queens representing indigenous states of origin and not just wearing a tag, Queen Nigeria will foster national integration as it will encourage Nigerian women from every tribe, religion and culture to participate.

The pageant, said to be open to Nigerian females between the ages of 18 and 25, has a mission to celebrate the rich fundamental cultural and moral values which typify the true essence of the contemporary Nigerian woman. We can’t agree less, given that the pageant includes a cooking competition and excludes a swimwear session, which makes it acceptable to all Nigerians regardless of tribe or religion.

We equally agree with the organisers that the ideal Queen Nigeria must be a truly Nigerian woman who understands the diversities that make up Nigeria, the cultures, and the values, and that while she could be from any part of Nigeria, but must understand religious tolerance and be able to represent Nigeria’s unity and richness. This, for us, is instructive given our present society where religion and ethnicity tend to tear us apart as a people.

In the face of the current threats to the unity of the country, we see Queen Nigeria as a welcome development and commend its organizers. We also call on the entertainment industry as a whole, especially Nollywood and the music industry, to begin to seek ways of fostering the nation’s unity through what they do. The time is now.