BY LINUS CHIBUIKE
THE Federal Executive Council has approved a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Information and Culture and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Bankers Committee for the renovation of the National Theatre, Iganmu Lagos.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who disclosed this to State House Correspondents at the end of the FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, on Wednesday, said the CBN was expected to provide about N21.89 billion for the project.
The apex bank is also expected to manage the refurbished National Theater for a few years before handing it over to the Federal Government.
The minister disclosed this just as he told State House Correspondents that the Council gave approval for the sum of about N9.43 billion to complete a Digital Switch Over.
The minsiter said, “This is a landmark approval because it has paved the way for investment in the creative industry as part of the resolve of this government to create at least one million jobs in the next three years in the creative industry.
“The approval of these two memos is capable of creating one million jobs in the next three years.
“The President had in 2020 given approval to the CBN and the Bankers Committee, to develop, refurbish, renovate the National Theater and at the same time take over the adjourning lands to create a veritable creative industry where there will be four hubs. One for films, one for music, one for IT and the other for fashion.”
He said the memo was for the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding for the refurbishment of the National Theater.
“The CBN and Bankers Committee are willing to invest N21.894 billion to renovate, refurbish and commercialise (run it profitably) the National Theater complex. The MOU has a life span of 21 years after which it will revert back to government,” the Minister said.
“The important thing is that no job will be lost because after the National Theater is renovated, a special purpose vehicle will be created to run it. It cannot be business as usual. It will be a turning point in the creative industry in the sense that we are going to have a brand new National Theater, an event center that will help in creating more jobs,” he added.
On the DSO, Mohammed said, “Digital switch over is now real and the economic effect of it will be the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs in content production, channel distribution, Nollywood and Electronic appliance productions to service about 20 million Nigerian homes.
“At the end of the switch over, we would have created the biggest free to air TV platform in Africa. I will be announcing a ministerial task force that will execute the council resolve either this week or next.”
