Sekibo advocates legislation to facilitate funding of creative industry

Managing Director/Chief Executive, Heritage Bank Limited, Mr. Ifie Sekibo, has called for appropriate legislation that will enhance flow of funds to the creative industry and help maximise the potential of operators in the industry.

Sekibo made this call while speaking on the contributions of Heritage Bank to the creative industry, stressing that, “financial institutions will be able to invest more if there is a proper law militating against piracy. There will be value for your money and creativity thereby making the banks to want to invest more in the creative industry.”

He noted that collaboration between the government and banks is needed to maximise the potential of the creative industry, saying, “we need to push government to be able to create legislations, policies that will enhance this seeming passion and turn it into business opportunities and by so doing, it will turn to economic and empowerment of our people.

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There is a lot we need to do as banks and government so that we can enhance creativity in terms of culture.

“Government policies are extremely important in achieving this. If there are no proper policies, funding becomes a problem.

And the collaboration between banks and government is needed to define what kind of policy and what kind of funding needs to be applied. These and many more are things to look at critically.

Take, for example, a Nollywood script writer that has no proper propriety or intellectual property law protecting his script.

He is unable to monetise it but if there is proper government policy, then he is able to take it to the bank and monetise it and he is able to grow the industry. This cuts across, even if it is an artist and there is no law or policy guarding artworks; anybody can steal and sell his ideas any time.”

Highlighting some of Heritage Bank’s contributions to the creative industry, Sekibo said, “we have been in this creative sector by sponsoring SEKI, a pantomimic dance drama, which traces the American tap dance to the indigenous people of the lower Niger Delta area of Nigeria.

We are also part of the Nigerian Festival of Arts and Culture and Tourism, which showcases Nigeria’s culture and tourism, and beyond that, we have also tried to support HIP TV, which is a new generation television station. We are part of the building of a digital platform called Octopus that brings both communities and digital platform together.”