The creative industry will be raking in about $100 billion to the country’s Gross Domestic Product by 2030, the Minister of Art, Culture, Tourism and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa has assured.
Musawa gave this assurance during the signing of Memorandum of Understanding between the ministry and Chocolate City.
Chocolate City is a Nigerian record label founded in 2005 by lawyers Audu Maikori, Paul Okeugo, and Yahaya Maikori.
She said, “We, as a ministry, have committed to growing the GDP by $100 billion by 2030. Even though some may think it’s an ambitious number, we don’t think so. Once we put all the modalities in place that will allow the industry, which is really 49 sub-sectors beyond music, art, fashion, and film, to really grow, I think you will see a huge growth, economic expansion, cultural expansion.”
She explained that the government will use the industry to create unity, a sense of identity for Nigerians.
“So many great things are going to come out from this MOU, and I have to say, honestly, this is one of the most exciting days that I’ve had.
“I say this hand on heart because these are people that have been part of this journey from the beginning. These are people that are committed to ensuring that we, as a ministry, succeed, Mr. President, as a President, succeeds, and the nation and the sub-sector continues to grow and succeed beyond us. So I’m looking forward to this, and you will be hearing from time to time the progress that we’re going to continue to have in this partnership.”
On his part, Audu Maikori, founder and Executive Vice Chairman of Chocolate City said He also pointed out that the music industry in Africa is growing at over 10% per annum, the highest rate in the world in the past 10 years.
“In fact, the music industry is projected to generate about $9 billion in 2025 alone. And the next four to five years will be close to $13 billion. This is a huge opportunity.”
He therefore said that the focus now is berthing the next generation. That’s what this partnership is all about. It’s about succession.
He added, “It’s about creating value chains across the industry. You can see a focus of music, but you can’t do music without infrastructure, without the studios, without the training. You can’t have artists that don’t understand what their rights are, because they can create amazing stuff, and tomorrow they’re broke.”
He therefore explained that “This MOU is here to provide that steroid shot, people to look at it and say, here’s what we need to do to get these places to a level where young people are producing, I always talk about products and market, are producing quality products for market, global market, local market, and so on and so forth. We don’t need anybody from the outside, because we have people that have the intelligence, we have people that have the know-how and the news, the business acumen to make it happen.”
