Nollywood: Husseini clarifies ban on smoking scenes in movies

Executive Director of National Films and Videos Censors Board (NFVCA), Shaibu Husseini has made clarifications on the recent ban on smoking scenes in Nigerian movies.

TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Husseini made the clarifications on Friday in a live TV program on TVC known as Your view.

Addressing the claims that the board banned smoking, Executive Director of NFVCB, said that there was no time he made a statement banning smoking in movies.

“There was no time I mentioned anything about banning smoking scenes, I never pronounced anything about banning of smoking scenes.

“But of course. you know that we are in a era where everyone is a journo and you just pick up a story, you have not even read the story and then you fly a headline.

“I even asked a lot of people, after reading the headline, did you read the story and found any where I was quoted to have banned smoking scenes  and ritual scenes in our movies?

“The implication of that headline is that, in Nigeria, there will be no longer movie that has smoking scenes. How is that even possible?” Husseini queried.

According to him, the content regulators only ensured that there is no promotion and glamorisation of tobacco, nicotines and money ritual in Nollywood films.

He continued, saying: “You see, Nigeria has passed a tobacco act, National Tobacco Control Act 2019. So, from 2019 there have been so many effort by different institutions to implement provisions of the act.

“Agencies like Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA)  implemented the policy on aviation, where you don’t smoke in the plane. Formerly, people smoke inside the plane, but now it is an offense to smoke inside a plane. It is part of the implementation.

“Our responsibility as content regulators is to ensure that there is no promotion and glamorisation of tobacco, nicotines and money ritual in our films.

“We did not say that if there are necessary smoking scenes, required for historical or educational purposes or to correct negative lifestyle, it should not be there. By all means please have it in the film.

“But what the new regulation says, is that, you must give a warning from the beginning of the film, that “the actors and film maker do not intend to glamorise smoking in the film, and please note that smoking is injurious to health.”

Husseini stressed that film makers must find creative way to put out the warning, this including a bold liner underneath a smoking scene, which must outline that ‘smokers are liable to die young’.

“They need to let people know that there is a warning attached to it, that is what the regulation talks about,” he added.

He further reiterated that he did not ban smoking scenes in Nollywood, adding that it is not possible to do such thing.

As for banning of money ritual scene, Husseini said, “they have had cases where young people came to us and said, it is from what they saw from movies that we emulated”.

He added that film makers who make such a movie must indicate in the end of the film that ”no head nor body was cut or multilated during the making of the film’.