Nigerian filmmakers are spending hundreds of millions of naira on productions right now, with no shared system in place to track where that money goes. In a sector valued at N2.7 trillion, that is a striking gap. Budgets are not standardised, box office numbers are inconsistently reported, and revenue data is scattered across studios, streamers, and informal distribution channels.
For investors, this creates a real problem. When you cannot verify returns or compare performance across projects, committing serious capital becomes a gamble rather than a calculated risk. Nollywood has the cultural reach and the audience appetite, but the financial infrastructure has not caught up.
The consequence is that decision-makers, both local and international, are essentially flying blind. A sector this size, and this influential across the continent and the diaspora, deserves the kind of data systems that can support its next stage of growth. The question is who builds them first.
Originally published by BusinessDay.