Sometimes back, thousands of Nigerian muslims protested against a N20 Billion Film Village project in Kano, the said venture has since been suspended by the Federal Government.
Meanwhile a while ago, the government of Saudi Arabia granted 6 cinema license to private companies to open Cinema and Studios, the highest number the kingdom ever granted.
In the same period, Pricewater Coopers, a renowned Audit and Accounting firm reported that Saudi Arabia Cinema industry is a Billion dollar investment opportunity, after an Arabian businessman invested $500 million for 8 cinemas and studios across the Saudi kingdom.
Of all the things that colonialism and imperialism brought to Nigeria, the only thing we copied well and outdid them was religion.
The west introduced modern science, art, history, technology, industry, and scholarship to Africans.
We didn’t Amplify or emulate that at all.
Where we chose to bury our beaks was in Religion.
Why??
Because early on, our Nigerian ancestors understood how easily religion can be weaponized and used as a tool to achieve socio-cultural, political, tribal, and ethnic agendas.
They had witnessed how effective it was from the very colonialists themselves.
Although we thought we were effective in emulating the western religious values, their spirituality, and their communion with God.
What we were in fact copying was their weaponizing of religion as a tool to control and push their sociocultural values on us.
This is what appealed to the Nigerian elites then, it is what is most appealing to the elites now.
Not some ethereal gain, not a need to ensure moral virtue in society. But a reoccurring need to use religion in the power play in the Nigerian political space, just like their colonial masters before them.
I can only say that the owners of the imported religions are far more liberal than we Africans.
While Africans hold onto the dogmas and mantras of the religion more than it’s owners.
Holier than Holy Mecca, and more righteous than the pope.
