“What Are These Authentic Nigerian Values? Before we can promote Nigerian values, we must ask ourselves: Do we still know them? Have we forgotten who we are?”
I thank the leadership of the Association Of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (ANTP) for the honour of inviting me as Trustee to deliver the keynote address at this historic Annual Conference.
Farounbi on promoting authentic Nigerian values
It is a homecoming for me, because I am one of you – a practitioner, a lover of culture, and a believer in the power of story.
My address today will not be long, but I pray it will be deep and disturbing – disturbing enough to make us change.
The topic before us is critical: “Making Films That Are Based On And Promote Authentic Nigerian Values.”
The Power We Hold In Our Hands
Distinguished colleagues, let us not deceive ourselves. We are not mere entertainers. We are the most powerful nation-builders in Nigeria today…
More powerful than the politician, more powerful than the pastor, more powerful than the teacher.
Why? Because you control the story.
Hollywood sold the American Dream to the world before the American Embassy was built. Britain sustains its monarchy through its films. India preserved its languages and morals through Bollywood.
Film is not just show-business. Film is EDUCATION. Film is EVANGELISM. Film is ORIENTATION. Film is PROPAGANDA.
A child may forget what his teacher taught him in school, but he will never forget a scene from a movie. That is power. And with power comes responsibility.
The question is: What are we doing with this power?
What Are These Authentic Nigerian Values?
Before we can promote Nigerian values, we must ask ourselves: Do we still know them? Have we forgotten who we are?
Permit me to remind us of five core values that define us as Nigerians, across all our 300 ethnic groups:
•Community over individualism:
We are our brother’s keeper. The Yoruba say, “Eni kan lo n bimo, igba eniyan lo n wo.” “One person gives birth, 200 raise the child.” The Igbo say, “Igwe bu ike.”; “Unity is strength.”
But what do our films teach today? That you can betray your brother, kill your friend, and live alone in a mansion and be happy. That is not Nigerian.
•Respect for elders, institutions and authority:
“Bi omode ba laso bi agba, ko le ni akisa bi agba.”; “A child may have a fine cloth like an elder, but he cannot have rags like an elder.” Respect is our foundation. Today, we make our obas buffoons, our fathers fools, and our mothers witches, just to make people laugh.
•Dignity of labour, integrity and good name:
Our fathers taught us “Ise ni ogun ise”; “Hard work is the antidote for poverty.” And “Oruko rere san ju wura ati fadaka lọ”; A good name is better than gold and silver. But our screens are now filled with the glorification of Yahoo-Yahoo, ritual killing for money, and effortless wealth without labour.
•True spirituality and morality:
Nigerians are deeply spiritual. We know that there is a Supreme Being, and that evil has consequences. But we now show a distorted spirituality – either we show our traditional religion as purely evil, or we show our faith as a tool for fraud. We have lost the balance.
•Resilience, family and joy:
Our extended family system, our ability to laugh even in hardship, our resilience, our sense of celebration – that is who we are.
If our films do not show these, then they are Nigerian in location, but not Nigerian in value.
Why Have We Lost Our Way?
I see three reasons.
First, the dictatorship of the market:
We have surrendered our conscience to algorithms. We say, “Na wetin market want be that.” We chase YouTube views, Instagram likes, and foreign streaming approval. We produce what sells, not what builds. The market must not be our master.
Second, the death of research: How many of our writers still go to the village?
How many sit with custodians of our culture – the Ifa priest, the palace historian, the market women leader – to learn our proverbs and histories?
We write our culture from Lagos hotel rooms. So, we produce caricatures of ourselves.
Third, copy-and-paste creativity: We are so busy copying America, India and Korea that we have forgotten that Nollywood’s strength was its originality. It was called _Naija-wood_ – our wood, our root. Now it is becoming a photocopy of other woods.
The Way Forward: Five Imperatives For ANTP
As Trustee of this great association, I do not just want to complain. I want to propose.
Imperative One: A Nigerian Values Charter For Filmmaking.
I call on this Conference to set up a committee to develop a Values Charter – not to censor, but to guide. A moral compass for practitioners.
Imperative Two: Funding For Authenticity.
We must collectively lobby government, Bank of Industry, Bank of Agriculture, and the private sector to create a dedicated intervention fund for films that promote authentic Nigerian culture, history, languages, and values. We must fund the good to crowd out the bad.
Imperative Three: Cultural Immersion Training.
ANTP Institute and our collaborations with universities must include cultural immersion. No one should graduate as a theatre practitioner without spending time in a traditional community, learning a Nigerian language fluently, and understanding our festivals.
Imperative Four: Collaboration With Custodians.
We must sign MOUs with the National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), National Council for Arts and Culture, Departments of Nigerian Languages, and Council of Traditional Rulers to ensure our stories are authentic.
Imperative Five: Owning Our Distribution.
We must build distribution networks that reward value-based films. If our TV stations, our cinemas, and even our ANTP cooperative streaming platform give prime time to films that build Nigeria, producers will produce them.
Conclusion
My dear colleagues, let me end with this prophecy.
In the next 15 years, Africa’s population will double. Their first image of what it means to be Nigerian, to be African, will not come from a textbook. It will come from your camera. It will come from your script.
What will you show them?
Will you show them that to be Nigerian is to be a criminal, a ritualist, and a disrespectful person?
Or will you show them that to be Nigerian is to be hardworking, resilient, community-loving, respectful, joyful, and God-fearing – a person whose greatest wealth is his good name?
The choice is ours.
Let us not just make films that TREND. Let us make films that ENDURE.
Let us not just make films that SELL. Let us make films that BUILD.
Let us give Nigeria back to Nigerians through our lenses.
Our Story. Our Values. Our Future.
•Being a Keynote Address delivered by Amb. Dr. Farounbi, OON, Trustee, Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (ANTP), at the 2026 Annual Conference of ANTP, held at the Pensioners’ Hall, Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State (BCOS), Ibadan, on Friday, 30 October, 2026.
