Apparently the quality of Nigerian movies is one of those things that is hard to fathom. I've heard numerous people say that they cannot understand why an industry that is rumored to earn $2 billion a year produces movies of a quality that only the kindest of critics would call crap. People always insist that there is a better way for Nollywood, that there is a way for Nollywood to produce higher quality movies and still make the kind of profits that they are making. There is a way to do this, but it means deviating from the standard principle of Nollywood economics: that every movie has to make a profit.

The starting point to understanding Nollywood economics or Nollynomics, is that the average units shipped is the guiding light. According to a Nollywood thing I read, and a few other confirming conversations, the average movie sells about 50,000 copies while a blockbuster (eg Jenifa) can sell upwards of 500,000 copies. This means that at N200 a pop, the average movie makes about N10 million in revenue while some movies can make over N100 million.

The second thing to understand is that it is mainly the marketer that makes this revenue not the producer. If the producer funds the movie himself, he then sells it to a marketer to distribute, or the marketer funds and distributes the movie. The producers do get a cut of the total distribution revenue if they funded the movie but it is never what it should be.

So if every movie has to make a profit, the marketer makes his plans based on N10 million and not N100 million. This means he prices accordingly. Which means that the if he is aiming for a 50% profit margin he will be willing to pay about N7.5 million for your movie as a producer or spend N7.5 million himself to finance a movie.

Now if it is a producer financed movie, the producer has to make a profit on the money he has spent. Which means a budget of about N5 million and a N2.5 million profit when he sells to the marketer. So this leads to the Nollywood trend that movies funded directly by marketers are actually of "higher" quality than those financed by producers.

The need to maximise the units shipped results in the "sequel-itis" that inflicts Nollywood, after all for a slight increase in cost, you can double, triple or quadruple the units shipped. And if you have a blockbuster Part I...

Piracy does not affect the economics in the way people think because Pirates are not interested in the run of the mill movies, they are only interested in the blockbusters. So as a marketer you can generally capture most, if not all, of the value of the average Nollywood movie. However of a 500,000 unit blockbuster, the marketer may sell 300,000 of those units. So the marketer doesn't like pirates but the pirates are creaming off profits and not necessarily causing losses.

The international and tv rights (think Africa Magic) do not impact the numbers because most people treat it as jara these days, especially since the tv rights are apparently stingy. So no push to increase quality based on these audiences.

The way to improve quality is for Nollywood to have a paradigm shift. Basically the participants have to stop thinking that every movie has to make a profit, and to move towards the blockbuster model where most movies lose money and the blockbusters make up for it. Judging by the experiences of Hollywood and Bollywood, the blockuster model will eventually win out. However since there has been no credible evidence to show that the number of blockbusters would go up if the quality level increased, there is no incentive to move to the new system just yet. So all you quality buffs should tell the Nollywood peeps to stop making big budget failures like Amazing Grace that are now used to argue that the Nigerian populace does not want quality :D

P.S. I support an "action thriller" as the first "big budget" blockbuster :D

Even by my recently lax standards it has been a long time since I have shuffled onto these pages to apologise for my absences. So consider this couple of sentences an apology, and lets dive right in:

So a couple of weeks ago I heard a story about informing on infidelity. So Lady A's best friend was getting married, and it came to her attention that her friend's intended was a serial cheater in the best Naija style. Lady A wrestled with it for a bit, but decided that her friend should have all the information before deciding. Her friend went ahead with the wedding and in the process their friendship was wrecked. Lady A coming to terms with the aftermath consoled herself that her consicience was clear.

Under the premise of "the more information the better" it is clear that Lady A was right to tell her friend about her beau's infidelity. Lady A had "provable intelligence" (it's in quotes cos she wasn't in the room) and so she had a duty to tell her friend. However there are tons of people who in the name of needing a "clear conscience" would tell their friends about their misgivings about the intended even in situations that are not as clear cut.

My take on this is simple: When someone asks you about their intended, you act like guys are trained to answer "do I look fat in this?" Unless you have concrete proof of infidelity or violence or some such it is not your place to give an opinion.

I have heard the argument that real friends can have constructive conversations in which an opinion can play a role. After all constructive conversations are the bedrock of any relationship. However in my experience, the only constructive conversation you can have about relationships is where the friend employs the art of empathic listening. The thing about empathic listening is that the listener does not give an opinion. The goal is to provide a sounding board for the person to come to terms with the issues that they are having.

For clarity, I have an example of where I would be tempted to give an opinion:

I think that every woman who is dating a man who is against her financial independence should run for the hills. However if a friend in this situation asked me if she should marry the guy, I would not tell her that she should run.

What would you do and why?

On January 31 2007, I wrote a post titled They Want What?. It was about a group of Niger Delta militants who kidnapped an American and a Briton and were demanding N1.8 billion and 100 cases of whiskey. At the time I said that it was stuff like this that would lead the Nigerian Government to get enough cover to ignore the human rights, ethnic and political tangles and move to crush the militants.

It turns out that it took two and a half more years of "provocation" for the Nigerian government get to that point and start the "war in the creeks". Things have changed in those years with the "militants" for the most part resembling organized crime rings and not freedom fighters. The politicians and a significant proportion of the populace in the Niger Delta have turned against the militants, which has given the Federal Government the political cover to move in with force. The Senate even got into the act urging the military to widen the scope of the campaign, though the less said about our august senators the better.

MEND's great response was to threaten the families of the soldiers and to blow up a pipeline in a completly unrelated area, which forced Chevron to stop pumping oil from a major flow station. The fact that they hit an a soft target outside the conflict region shows that even MEND knows that they can't defeat the military in a stand up fight. However their actions are also giving the military more political cover to expand the scope of the campaign. I have no sympathy for the "serious" militant groups such as MEND. From where I sit, I think they have ignored or sabotaged all serious attempts to make inroads into solving the crisis - attacking Julius Berger comes to mind, as does insisting that Jimmy Carter chair the Niger Delta sumit. They have also been discredited by the criminal elements in the "struggle" regardless of how many hostages they "rescue" from the criminals.

Everybody and their mother should know that the Niger Delta solution has to be a political one not a military one, so after the bombs have stopped falling I hope there is enough of a will to tackle the problems that underly the Niger Delta struggle. There is a commitment to stop the environmental degredation, but the jury continues to be out on the seriousness of the state and federal governments to address the development challenges. If they don't do it, we will find ourselves right back where we started in a few years.

A cursory glance at the news landscape over the last month would have brought one face to face with one of the many policy debates going on in the United States. The debate I'm referring to is the one on torture.

This debate is particulary interesting because in most debates the Republicans are the absolutists arguing black and white, and the Democrats are the relativists arguing shades of gray while in this one the sides have switched.

The Republicans are the relativists in this debate preferring to focus on the effectiveness of torture as the standard, while Democrats are the absolutists arguing about the morality of tortue.

The Republicans are basically saying three things. One - all tortue is not equal, that they are not for pulling fingernails of people or anything, just for things like controlled waterboarding, sleep deprivation in stress positions, loud eminem and what not. Two - these things should be judged on their effectiveness. Three - tortue should only be used in two extreme cases - the ticking bomb scenario or to save an innocent life.

The Democrats are saying were saying two things at first. One - Tortue is wrong. Two - torture is ineffective so even if it wasn't wrong (which it is) there is still no point.

Here is my problem with the republican position. They are cool with fact that America tortured because it provided actionable inteligence and saved American lives. However they are against admiting to the torture because it will put American lives at risk. So while admitting that torture can save lives, they also admit that it can endanger lives. This is where the effectiveness argument can fall down. It may be a net positive, but it also may be a net negative and there is no way they can credibly know that.

Here is my problem with the democratic argument, arguing that tortue is ineffective is a non-starter. While it is entirely possible that for everytime someone spills his guts someone else dies with a smile on his lips, it doesn't change the fact that it is impossible to prove the negative that tortue is ineffective. The other problem the democrats have is that they cannot admit that their alternative to tortue is uncertain that the refusal to torture could result in another terrorist attack (saying this of course is akin to political suicide in America).

Having outlined both positions, and poking holes in each it's time to move on to my opinion of who's right. First off, torture is one of those "I'll know it when I see it" things and judging by the full descriptions of what went on, what the US did is one of those things. Now the reason why I do not think you should torture is that deciding to tortue is a classic example of subordinating strategy to tactics. For example, in a war where one of the objectives is to win the "hearts and minds" of a population that is in danger of being radicalised for terrorism, torture is a dumb move that goes against this. Another one I have already mentioned is that it can put American lives (soldiers at risk)

So there you have it folks, regardless of the effectiveness of a particular piece of torture it was a dumb tactic that interfered with the overall US strategy. Feel free to prove me wrong.

It goes without saying that someone as socially liberal as I am will not be a fan of patriarchy as is practiced in Nigeria. I mean it is all well and good for some people to think that a woman's only role is to be a wife and mother, and that women are inherently lesser than men, but not the majority of the population. However I'm not taking issue with patriarchy as a whole today, cos I want to focus on a particular nefarious effect that patriarchy has on women.

There is something wrong with a society that expects a woman who makes N10 million a year to spend her money on credit and hair. Well maybe also on a cheap car that will not scare away too many suitors. After all you can't get married pushing a Range Rover Vogue.

Before you protest in indignation think about it. In Nigeria today, a man is "supposed" to provide everything for his wife, and the home. Her money is not "expected" to be used to take care of anything from the house, to the school fees, the car, the bills etc, etc. Now this is supposed to be fine when the woman is not working or is working in a job that pays like a hobby. eg. teaching or law; kinda kidding about the last one ;) However when the woman is making serious money, what exactly is she supposed to do with it. I mean its not like she can contribute to the wellbeing of her family, after all what kind of man would that make her husband?

Now it is my belief that a lot of people are quietly ignoring this tenet of life in Nigeria and living two income lives, while maintaining the status quo of the one man army. Which is fine in one sense, but it also contributes to a lot of people thinking that this is the way to live your life.

This is an issue cos money talks. When it is the man's money, it is ultimately his decision. The women will have an input, and sometimes even final say, however that is because the guy allows her. However the fear seems to be this - if you need her cash then you are not listening to her because you want "peace in your house", you are listening to her cos you have no choice.

Judging by the jokes I've heard them make, women seem to like this state of affairs because it frees them from all responsibilty. Think about it, your money is literally yours to do with as you like. I mean if you want to give half your upfront to the church more power to your bad religious self, if you want that tenth pair of tiffany amber jeans,kini big deal, if you want those gucci/louis/prada worreva, don't hate the playa.

The closest thing I can think of, to this description of a woman in Nigeria is a teenager with an after school job. Which nicely highlights my problem with this state of affairs. It infantalizes women. Being concerned about rent/mortgage, school fees, diesel is not fun and most of us would like someone to magically come and make all of this go away, however meeting these responsibilities is the sign of being an adult.

You can argue that women can find men who don't think like this, however as I have discovered recently almost all Nigerian men have this belief nestled somewhere in their subconsious. That is what socialisation is. We need to get our heads around the fact that we should encourage women who earn money to contribute instead of telling them to be humble and submit (it seems any woman that makes money is in immediate danger of being proud).

Some women want to be teenagers, and that's fine, however a lot of the women in Nigeria would like adulthood just fine if they were allowed to try it and society is making it damn hard for them to be adults. From "father's house to husband's house" to "hair and credit" and all the other random things that come with being female in Nigeria, it seems that a woman just can't catch a break.