The Federal Government has taken steps to invest in animation industry with the strive to make 60 per cent of its content local.
This was made known by the National Orientation Agency stressing that plans are on top gear to to engage cartoon creators to produce local contents as part of measures to bridge the parenting gap and ensure good value systems.
The agency said plans are also underway to partner with the National Broadcasting Commission to make it compulsory for television stations and schools to ensure that 60 percent of the contents are local and about the country, according to The Nation.
It also said the agency would engage 37,000 citizen brigades in primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions across the country to promote national values.
The director general of the NOA, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, revealed this in Abuja at a stakeholders’ workshop on parenting programmes in Nigeria supported by Parenting For Life Long Health and Global Parenting Initiative, University of Oxford.
Issa-Onilu explained that some parents have left the bulk of their responsibilities to schools.
The agency, while lamenting that contents currently watched by most children in Nigeria were foreign and alien to Nigeria’s culture, said the measures by the agency will bridge the parenting gap.
He said insecurity, economic crisis, poverty, unemployment and deprivation over the years, have also hindered the positive socialization of family members.
He noted that there is increasing challenge for the school system to make up for the family lapses, adding that many African children grow up in homes with absenteeism of parents and little or no outside contact.
“Steps we are currently taking at the NOA with regards to en-placing responsible parenting includes; our current engagements with cartoon creators with a view to ensuring that the cartoons that our children watch going forward, are reflective of our heroes, our culture, our folklore, our diversity, our challenges and our victories.
“We are taking these engagements with cartoon creators with the highest degree of seriousness and commitment because, even though many of you may not have noticed, we are currently raising foreigners in our various homes across Nigeria,” the NOA boss said.
He continued, “The cartoon contents that our children spend hours watching and which shape their character and worldview do not project the nuances of our culture and values.”
He further stated that the agency has “commenced the process of curating the type of local content that our children should be watching which should be reflective of our national values. We will be partnering with the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) which has the regulatory role to play in terms of what content appears on our television.”
“You will agree with me that even in pre-nursery and early primary schools, the children most times spend their time watching foreign cartoons,” he added.
