MOPICON Is Necessary – Fred Amata

Nollywood actor and DGN president, Fred Amata has declared that the proposed establishment of the Motion Picture Practitioners Council of Nigeria (MOPICON), which many entertainers have poured scorn on, is necessary.

‘MOPICON is necessary. It is needed. Especially in the evolution of Nollywood as a business, as a sub sector of the Economy. We need a practice that is structured. People have argued that we want to control practitioners and I say no, we need to control the practice. That’s what MOPICON can do for us at this time. We need to protect the practice, to define the code of ethics and the terms with which people practice and to improve generally the working conditions of practice in Nigeria,’ he said.

Fred Amata

Speaking further, Amata said: ‘There’s nowhere in the world that you can jump on the street and begin to film. So there’s been various arguments as to whether MOPICON should regulate practice, as to regulate practitioners, my take is that, we need a MOPICON to regulate practice. We must regulate practice. There’s no alternative. The alternative to that regulation will amount to chaos, will take us back. We have gone too far, we don’t need anything that will take us back.’

He added, ‘Even though we agreed that there are some clauses that shouldn’t be there. The most controversial is the jail terms. I am part of the MOPICON bill committee and from all the recommendation you have read so far, you will find out that there’s a consensus towards saying no to the jail terms. MOPICON should be industry motivated. It should be MOPICON for us, by us. What is happening now is that we have a very understanding and sensitive government, who has said ok, this is about you, this has been on the table for so long, why don’t you tell us what exactly you need and bring it back to us. So I think it’s a good opportunity for us to determine by ourselves our future.’