Harmful Poverty and piracy

A contribution from group discussions in Bamako-Mali during  the Winter school of Arterial Network.

Odekuchu Ivo lives in Ekok, a Cameroonian city on the border line with Nigeria. He is a video-filmmaker on his way to Enugu in Nigeria in September to collect the copyright dues that he had willingly saved over one year. His wife is on the verge of delivering their 9^th child. The 8 others are waiting for him to come back and sponsor their school year.

In Enugu in Nigeria, posters of his movie dubbed Sweat Mother are pasted everywhere. The film, he hears, is watched by the diaspora in the UK, the US, France and even in China. Odekuchu is moved by the audience of his film and, therefore, dreams of a good turn-over.

But in the copyright office, he is disappointed by Azikiwé Ernest. No movie had been registered under the name Odekuchu Ivo. Instead, the owner of the movie Sweat mother is Odekucho Irene. Pirates have defeated him over his product. The pirated movie displays more sophistication than the original film.

All the hopes of saving money over a year have disappeared. Tous les espoirs d’une année d’épargne s’envolent en fumée. Odekuchu goes back to Ekok in South-East Cameroon on foot. At home, he discovers that the wife has died after poor delivery. Even the baby has passed away. The 8 other children cannot go to school this year. The video-films their father produces cannot provide them the daily bread needed. 9 months later, the elder son Odekuchu Joachim is arrested in Douala in Cameroon for armed robbery with people dying.

Nigeria is the world leading producer of video-films. Only a handful of authours and actors earn a living on it. Things are unlikely to change before 2015. It is the deadline for the MDGs. The 1^st consists of reducing abject poverty by half. The Odekuchus will miss the deadline. The same holds true for more than 60% households across Africa. In this regard, out of the 50 poorest countries the world over, 33 are from Sub Saharan Africa according to the human Development Index. The son Odekuchu Joachim fails to get job satisfaction from farming. Therefore, he embarks on armed robbery and ends up serving

The 2^nd MDG is free primary education for all by 2015. But artist Odekuchu’s children are now school drop-out. They won’t complete primary education. Therefore, illegal use fire arms would become their duty as they would end up with the blood of innocent people murdered in their minds.

The 3rd MDG is woman empowerment. Yet, Odekuchu’s wife because dies because she is a victim to poverty. The surgery fee in the absence of her husband, the sole bread-winner in the family, was unfordable. Abandonment and lack of solidary among nurses unfortunately led her to death.

The 4th MDG is the reduction of infant mortality and the 5th is the improvement of maternal health. The 9^th child passes away owing to poor patient management at the Ekok Maternity.  The same reason also accounts for the wife’s death. A woman dies each one minute across the world. The misfortune is on. Nothing seems to be able to reverse the trend by 2015.

The other MDGs are somehow above Africa. That is fighting HIV-AIDS when malaria is still the main silent killer. That is to worry about environmental issues when food is absent from tables. Arts and culture are still failing to meet people’s basic needs, especially food, clothes or the weather. Therefore, it is unlike that people show interest in meeting secondary or as stated by the 8^th MDG, that is constructing a world partnership for development.

To earn a living on arts and culture, a market is needed. Africa has some markets. Only Nigeria represents a market of 150 million people. One African out 7 is from that country. Her video industry accounts for 300 direct jobs, 1,200 films per year. It has turned out to be a successful alternative to possible oil exhaustion. Unfortunately, it is the market of piracy par excellence. Producers offer more pirated CDs than original copies. Markets are poorly structured. Neither cultural industries nor artists take advantage of it. So, creative industries are null and void within a context that has been overwhelmed by poverty and in an atmosphere that is definitely contrary to MDGs.