Nigerian Government Don't Take Hip-Hop Serious -2Face Idibia

 Innocent Ujah Idibia aka 2face, has called on the government to take entertainment serious as it could contribute immensely to the country’s economy.

He made this known in an interview with a popular online blog stating that the continue neglect by the government is contributing to increase in piracy which is detrimental to the artiste and the government.


“That is the Nigerian thing. To be honest with you, corruption is the reason why piracy is still a major issue in Nigeria, because if radio stations are not paying royalties, because they run to a government agent and they give them some sort of backing, you can’t shut them down, you cannot do anything about it, because the government is not taking it serious.

‘If the government knows that these artistes have to pay taxes and they are going to make a lot of money from collecting these taxes, then they could decide to create an avenue where these artistes will make big money and so pay them big taxes, and it goes round like that. If the government is serious, they would make effective laws and enforce it. They would make sure music pays and it will happen but because of corruption, this doesn’t happen”. He said.

Tu Baba as he is fondly called stressed the need for security agencies to take it upon themselves to fight the menace. “If police see person wey dey sell pirated CDs, dey no dey look am like crime. He go dey look as, ‘why you just wan collectfood from that boy hand’, he doesn’t even know it’s a crime, na punishable offence, so it’s serious. The Nigerian government doesn’t take entertainment seriously, it’s not by dashing artistes or anybody money but by actually saying, this industry wetin be the thing wey they need to do to regulate am make e tight, so that it can actually be more productive”.