The Federal Government says it will spend N25 million to establish an Underwater Research and Imaging Centre in Bayelsa State.
The Minister of Culture and Tourism, Chief Edem Duke, said at the annual African Movies Academy Awards Night last Saturday that movie makers should use their creative skills to tell the Nigerian story in the right perspective.
Duke said that the centre would boost human capital development in the industry. He assured that the N3 billion pledged by the Federal Government to support the movie industry would soon be released and urged the guilds in the sector to use the funds judiciously.
Gov. Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa State said the state government had begun the construction of a film and entertainment village in Yenagoa to facilitate the production of movies that would market Bayelsa.
Dickson said government had endowed a Bayelsa Indigenous Movie Trust Fund to give lifeline to budding talents in the industry, and pledged the readiness of the government to provide land to movie makers who wished to reside in the state.
South African High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr Lulu Mnuguni, said there was need for the two countries to cooperate and chart a new course for development of the African continent.
“We recalled that Nigeria played a pivotal role to the freedom we enjoyed today because you believed that injustice to one is injustice to all; now is the time for us to join forces and face the battle against poverty in the whole of Africa,” he said.
