Dr. Ola Balogun: Nigeria Is Going To Cannes To Fry And Sell "Akara"?

Dr. Ola Balogun: Nigeria Is Going To Cannes To Fry And Sell "Akara"?
« on: Today at 07:06:48 PM »

As we were waiting to buy fuel at the filling station on the Commercial Avenue in Sabo, Lagos, Nigeria, I exchanged greetings with Nigeria’s foremost filmmaker, Dr. Ola Balogun and the author of the travelogue The Magic Land of Nigeria.

Orikinla: Nigeria is going to Cannes.

Dr. Ola Balogun: To do what? To fry and sell Akara?

Orikinla: Our magazine is going there to report the truth about what Nigeria is going to do at the Cannes Film Festival.

Dr. Ola Balogun: Nigerians don’t like to hear the truth.

We smiled.

Nigerian administrators of the film industry like the Nigerian Film Corporation and others have been making an annual pilgrimage to the Cannes Film Festival to display their audio-visual products at a pavilion and have never been able to make any film that has qualified for the screening and competition. Notable Nigerian director and founder /CEO of the Abuja International Film Festival, Fidelis Duker said it is an annual jamboree for Nigeria to go to Cannes and waste millions of naira to display their ignorance.