The National Film and Video Censor Board (NFVCB) said it had trained over 60 staff as spy police, specialised in policing, monitoring, and enforcement activities in the entertainment industry.
The Executive Director, NFVCB, Alhaji Adedayo Thomas, spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Abuja, on Friday, on the importance of the spy police.
Thomas said that such development was aimed at protecting the morals and cultural values of the society.
According to him, uncensored and unclassified films frequently had immoral issues that were not resolved before they were released for public viewing.
He noted that a film that was not classified was not supposed to be shown to the public, stressing that defaulters always faced penalties.
“We have strategised our actions and operation through reconstitution of the task force, also through the strengthened capacity of the staff in the operation and enforcement department to track defaulters.
“We have also addressed people that do online regarding their uncensored and unclassified films works which contain lots of immorality that were not corrected.
“We urge them to desist from such acts, though we have a way of tracking them as well,” he said.
NFVCB boss assured that a lot would be eliminated, especially after the board’s dialogue with streamers, because Nigeria was now opened to investors.
“We thank God that we are able to dialogue at a conference with the online platforms that opened, a couple of things happened and changes were noticed.
“We have been pleading with the society at large to report back to us, and we are happy about the feedback so far and appreciate what they are sending back to us,’’ he said.
Thomas further said that in Canada, people sent messages that the immorality in a particular film was not good, they also send the name of the film, title, and producer to the NFVCB.
“When we checked, we noticed that the films were unclassified and uncensored. Our next line of action was to trace the owners but later discovered that some of them were ignorantly doing it just for fun.
“But, nobody will say ignorance of the law is allowed, NFVCB does not allow such. But, in a situation where we are supposed to have our strong hammer on them, we think otherwise then let them go,” he said.
The executive director also said that the training of another 55 staff was still ongoing at the police training school, Lagos, for the same purpose.
