One year after: Entertainment Industry yet to get Jonathan’s $200m largesse

The entertainment and creative industries are still battling and struggling to access the $200 million intervention funds granted them by President Goodluck Jonathan, one year after he publicly made the pledge.
With the numerous controversies and delays trailing the elusive grant, many stakeholders now view it as a mere political statement, which Mr. President used to curry favours from them while campaigning last year.
Several stakeholders and practitioners that spoke with ACTION! on the condition of anonymity, lampooned Mr. President and the relevant authorities for playing unnecessary politics with the funds, which they are also scared would soon disappear into private pockets.
“Last year, we were all happy when Mr. President made the pledge at the 30th anniversary of Silverbird. Since then, we’ve held several meetings with the banks that will help disburse the funds to all the relevant stakeholders and one year after, nothing has come out of it. They keep giving us conditions that are out of this world. We are filmmakers and not politicians who have choice property to give as collateral,” explained one of the angry stakeholders.
Another chafed top practitioner wants Jonathan to come out and openly tell them if the grant was meant for them or not. “Too much politics has entered this grant. When it was announced last year October, we were all happy and looked forward to accessing it without these unnecessary bottle necks. It’s painful that after one year, non of the leading names in the nation’s entertainment and creative sectors have been able to access these funds. What it then means is that either Mr. President or those entrusted with the money are playing politics with it and also not telling us the whole truth about it. We’ve done all they told us to do, yet the funds are still hanging and would soon develop wings.”
Without any hope of accessing the controversial funds in sight, another galled stakeholders who told us he was sick and tired of attending meetings, said they have decided to stage a protest march in Abuja and Lagos, respectively over the issue, in the next couple of weeks.
“With these planned protests we would be able to draw the attention of Mr. President to the challenges we are currently facing in accessing the funds he willingly pledged to us since last year. And when that option fails, we will now agree with the general notion that it was just a mere political statement used in winning over our support during the last election exercise.”
However, Paul Obazele, the about-to-go president of the Association of Movie Producers (AMP), is optimistic the funds would soon be made available to the entire industry.
Obazele assured his incensed colleagues to be patient with the relevant financial institutions processing the funds, adding that they were following due process in order to avoid making mistakes.