Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State

In his speech during the award that ended early hours of Friday, Governor Amaechi praised the movie industry players, who he described as “Nigerian Heroes”, for their important role in shaping the social and economic development of Nigeria especially in creating huge employment generation sector.

He said Nollywood was “a product of necessity” due to the fact that the growing unemployment rate forced many to movie locations.

Amaechi, however said while it was gladdening that many have become successful through that creative endeavour, he enjoined them to look into producing more movies that will be laced with social message rather than allowing political interest to colour the plot of their production.
“You all started very well in this Nollywood journey, but at a time deviated into the Juju-themed storyline which turned off many. But given the precarious situation of our country now, I will implore you to begin to look into writing script that will be full of social message. You owe the country that duty as her heroes,” Amaechi urged.

Earlier, the governor had congratulated this year’s BON Special Recognition Awards recipients: veteran actor Adebayo Salami aka Oga Bello; ageless actress Liz Benson-Ameye; seasoned thespian Nobert Young and legendary Kannywood actor, Kasimu Yaro. He described the quartet as worthy of the honors.
Other winners were Desmond Elliot, who clinched the Amaka Igwe Director of The Year award with the movie, “Apaye”; Best Kiss In A Movie award went to Majid Michel and Beverly Naya (Forgetting June); Movie with the Best Social Message (Our Difference); Movie with the Best Special Effect (A Mile From Home); Best Use of Make Up (Cobra); Best Use of Food (Being Mrs Elliot), Best Sound (Render To Ceaser), Best Production Design (Osunfunke) and Best Short Film (Brave).
Also considered worthy are Best Comedy Movie of the Year (30 Days In Atlanta); Best Cinematography (Apaye); Best Screenplay (Render To Ceaser); Best Documentary (Fatai Rolling Dollar); Best Edited Movie (A Mile From Home); and Best TV Series (Lekki Wives).

Seun Oloketuyi, executive producer of the awards explained that BON Awards has been rewarding those pre-eminent and enterprising talents whose sweat and toil have placed the Nigerian movie industry on the global map of filmmaking, but in spite of some challenges yearly in producing this reward system, the organisers will keep bracing the odds to honour this special people.

He revealed that about 150 movies were entered for this year’s edition, 23 of these were short films, while a little over 20 were discovered not to have met some of the terms and conditions of the awards.