Jobs for the local team; not a bad policy. Nonetheless, we should be nuanced and flexible as we implement this. Why? I am not sure you can define a “Nigerian model” and a “Nigerian voice” in this age when Apple, Spotify, etc are signing our young people for the big stages across Africa. If other African countries implement the same, we lose since Nigerian artists outperform Africa-wide.
I continue to wait for someone that will hire my nice voice (lol) for a major advertisement in Nigeria. The only companies which continue to show up are beer/alcohol companies which want my voices to connect my work in Harvard on Igba Boi to sell beer, by linking everything to tradition. Of course, no amount can make me do that.
But if you need a Nigerian voice and a Nigerian model on many other business domains, Ndubuisi Ekekwe meets the specs and can help. Write the script so that I do not speak for one hour on the ad! Hahaha. That is what the government expects! Lol
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This is local content – and let us support the government on this. We do not need AIs with alien voices talking to Nigerians on radios and TVs. Do not do that; get a real voice.
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We cannot enthrone local content in petrol we consume at scale, on the foreign medical trips we spend public funds in, even the PTDF scholarships;but it sounds great to implement local content on advertisements, largely done by private entities. The very things choking all of us, we are powerless to flex our regulatory muscles there, how big really is ads spending involving foreign models and voice-over artists?
Most of our regulations are discriminatory, because they are never premised on sound economic construct, but as long as it doesn’t have serious impact in one half of Nigeria, it magically become a great policy.
Many of these things will be thrown out of the window, post this regime. This particular one is nonsense.
Naira is not suffering because of use of foreign models and voice-over artists, so if the managers are so inept to tackle the big issues, then they should stop distracting us with non essentials.