 Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. Henry Thomas Bucklew once said, Welcome to the Advocate, where thought provoking topics are discussed with no holds back, here on Plus TV Africa. We basically call it Spade by its name. I'll be talking about the creative industry and how it is fast becoming an endangered space that we must ultimately protect. If Edelakwa's myth is with a little or no representation of women in the tech world. Peter is talking about how to engage millennials and Gen Z in the same workplace. And finally, Tonya is pointing out a rising crisis in the educational system, which is a school fees. Sit back, and after this break, we'd be here to dissect it all. Stay with us. The creative industry, an endangered idea. Creativity in itself has a broad range of meanings and across sectors. The creative industry will cover sectors such as communications, media, advertising, finance, technology, fintech, entertainment, real estate, fashion, engineering, academia, security. I mean, you get the point, right? Every industry has a measure of creativity embedded, inherent, or inherent in it. As a result of this, the industry in itself should be safely protected and encouraged to thrive, grow and succeed. Because the death of the creative industry is the death of many other sectors that directly impact the economy and, in fact, the GDP of any nation. Some international statistics will help you put this in context, right? In the United Kingdom, Centre for Economic and Business Research, CEBR reported that the creative industry realised 25.2 billion in direct turnover. 170,250 jobs and 7.1 billion pounds in employee compensation. Generally, the industry realised 48 billion pounds in turnover, 23 billion pounds in GVA, that's the gross value add. 363,713 jobs and 13.4 billion pounds in employee compensation alone. In Singapore, the whole country has been impacted by the digital revolution and has the highest mobile penetration rates in the world and also the most active consumers of online video. The creative industry in Singapore amounted to 23.9 billion dollars in direct contribution to the GDP and additional 12 billion dollars in indirect contribution and 12.7 billion in value added which is total of 5.9% of the GDP of the nation. This cluster comprising more than 4,500 companies in China according to the NBS Najambarostasytics in China added that China's creative industry increased from 1.052 trillion in 2010 to 2.735 trillion in 2015 representing an expanded share in GDP from 2.75% to 3.82%. In terms of growth rates the China's creative sector achieved 11% in 2015 higher than the macroeconomic level. The cultural and creative industries have thus become a main impetus for promoting China's economic growth and optimizing its structure. In South Africa it was found that the co-creative industries contributed 3.5% to the South African GDP in 2017 that is 155 billion runs which is a total share of 5.29% of the GDP. The creative industries contributed 2.53% to the gross value add of South Africa which is 1.56 billion runs. In Nigeria a new report shows Nigeria's creative industry is the country's 2nd largest employer of labour and has the potential to produce 2.7 million jobs by 2025. The study by Jabba Ramam also finds 4.2 million people across 5 sectors media, entertainment beauty and lifestyle visual arts as well as tourism and hospitality. The creative industry in Nigeria is said to be worth an estimated 2.270 billion error. It is also worthy of note that the creative industry in Nigeria is largely driven by the youth population who account for almost half of the whole population. Why isn't there an enabling environment for the youth to thrive in Nigeria? There are several reports of this population being harvested to other countries due to the whole time environment in Nigeria. How do we then protect these endangered species? We must indeed start to get creative ways to protect our young creative minds. That was a mouthful. I know, right? I'm a creative industries person. I'm in it. I create content. I produce content. That's what I've been doing for the past 15 years in Nigeria. So I understand. Now, it's not set up for unfortunately for producers or content creators, creators really to succeed. It just isn't. It's set up for those with the infrastructure to succeed and when we look at ok, you have this creative idea, right? You want to get it out, you put it out and creators, we have so much passion. But there's a disconnect between those who are creating the passion and those who can help get it out there and fund. When it comes down to it, it's money and whether any value is actually seen in funding these creative projects. And other countries are seeing the value which is why we're seeing just an enormous drain of our youth who are creatives, who are passionate and who have those skills already. A lot of creative companies are investing in training and then employ those kids they train but then just a few months later they're poached by Canada. And unfortunately those who are the gatekeepers here are not willing to do what is necessary in order that we can succeed internally. They're just busy looking at in the way it says with so many things just lining their pockets. So unfortunately there isn't that value. When you look at how our industry is even set up it's set up to fail. If we don't even look at the new stuff the fact that we still need traditional media here because a lot of people don't have access to data, they don't have access to the internet or devices and they're still getting consuming through traditional means, radio and television. In other countries you create contents, you pitched for people to license your content. They pay you a valuable sum. They pay you a valuable sum for that content. Here you pay them to put your content on air. It's just set up to fail from the beginning and it's really, really unfortunate. Absolutely. It says just listening to you and when to talk about. It's massive and unfortunately it's easy to know when medical doctors are living in the country. It's easy to know when nurses are living. But we don't know how many how much of our economy has been depleted by creative people who can just see I'm not even let me even start from the basic. You know when Governor Babio was in power he did some things that made almost like make it look like Kwaibong was going to be the destination for movie producers whilst I've forgotten the Kalaba, the governor that was there at its time, Biaz Tinapa which also attracted the likes of Ebonilak TV to go there but then you now find that place became a money golper. It's almost like it doesn't pay because the process of you getting there they didn't make it easy. It was like you build a very fantastic facility and put a very high wall. There are no gates, there are walls. And so let's live all of that. All of that are in the past. I think the first thing is our leaders, politicians need to maybe oil should actually dry in Nigeria to get us to start thinking. Politicians, everything we are saying they just amount to grammar because those guys in Abuja are waiting for the sharing formula. Let's generate the money and share it. They are not looking at the money that could come from all these things. Make it easy for this guy to use his phone and get cheap data. Make it easy for him to charge his phone. It's not as hard as you think. It's like a continuum. On one side of it, there's a creative it's passionate about what he does. He's an artist. On the other side of it is a capitalist. Someone that can make money out of what they're passionate about. It's very simple. Create the bridge between the artist and the capitalist such that I can just do what I love to do. I can thrive at what I love to do. Then you've created an enabling environment for that to be valuable to me and to the economy. Because it's two things. I mean I would have created value I'm happy, I'm fulfilled but at the same time I'm also adding to the GDP. I mean look at all these countries, look at how much the creative industry adds to their GDP because they've created an environment that allows creativity not just to thrive but also to be valuable financially. So I think the creative industry is very similar to the tech industry where you have people that are putting in their hard work that are doing the same thing that the counterpart abroad are doing but they're not getting the result over years. It's like I'm working so hard but there's nothing. So it's like a case of a prophet is never respected in his own. And now they are seeing it that oh I can go to Dubai and then I'll be paid better than this place. I'll be treated better I can go to the US so there's no need I mean take for example KOB2 King of Boys 2 Kemi released it on Netflix because she knows she'll be able to get her money back. And Netflix is not owned by Africans, it's not owned by Nigerians it's international and they've created that platform where Nigerian producers can now say okay if I move you to this standard I can put you on this platform and I can get my money back and I feel like we need more of that with the artists the musicians people like that where there's a platform that they can trust and they can get their money back but again this money is being exported it's going back to the US it's not here I need to talk about it. I did research I did a small research. I mean google is try it on your google. I just google content industry worth in the US and you'll see the median investment industry is worth almost one trillion dollars it's just content industry people that provide content so you're up to trust me you're onto something we just need to make sure we have to kind of wake people up and vigorously trying to shake people and say look what are you waiting for what are you looking for every day there's new youth coming and the ones that we have now also are doing great things and even I also say it's not limited to youth I always say on our platform the youngest producer is 4 years old the oldest one is 66 so it's not only a youth thing there's people who have ideas people who are creative people who are dreamers people who have talent that can actually create things that the massive population that we have but the problem is that we just have these rigid gatekeepers who are just focused on certain areas but also we're limited in terms of investment opportunities because our system is set up backwards can I ask a question we're like playing the devil's advocate so I would ask would you rather advise the skids to just keep hoping and hope or hoping against hope as some day the gatekeepers Nigerian gatekeepers don't die they succeed themselves so do you see that's any change happening in the next 15-20 years because if this continues this way would you rather that this talents just die off or they should export what they have to where they are going to be compensated I think that's a really good question I think it's multilateral I think that there's always the way our general society not even this industry is set up there's always going to be these gatekeepers or haters so I would say number one to anybody who has a dream or is doing this already you have to try your best to keep going because our culture and society depends on the storytellers we're just using different technology to do it storytellers are key history is key our voice is key we encourage ourselves to tell the story which means there's a certain amount of skill share that needs to happen of democratization that needs to happen and when you look at it it's a global world we need to be looking about here in Africa and the wider international community so I would never say limit yourself to Jossia no, be looking whatever technology is available to you get that technology if you can don't be just looking here you have to be working the traditional and you have to be working the modern and you just have to try your best it's a hard game but I'm still in it and I think that if you do it consistently enough and you keep getting better there's a time when the music industry in Nigeria was in that period now it's one of the best in the world it will stand side by side with any other music industry in the world nollywood was consistency there's a bit of also the governmental support that got them to where they were to where they are now you've seen over the years they just keep keeping at it, getting better and then I personally feel there should be a ministry just set up just for that it's a big enough I think we have it but they're not doing anything as most of the look ok, let's talk about that that's a good point, let's talk about that so CBN has the syfi loan created this industry loan and so does BOI so they are thinking about these things they are thinking about ok, there's this industry nollywood has been here, has shown the way but again the Niger factor kicks in it doesn't reach the people that's meant to be funded and unfortunately it takes too long we have to put up colato all these things, the barrier is very very high to entry but we remain hopeful let's just say that absolutely that was quite interesting up next is Ifedolapu please stay with us