Nigeria today has a little over 300 cinema screens serving a population of more than 230 million people. Yet only a small fraction of these screens are located in Northern Nigeria—a region that accounts for well over half of the country’s population. This imbalance is not merely a business challenge; it is a major obstacle to the growth of the creative economy.
Contrary to popular assumptions, cinema-going is not alien to Northern Nigeria. From the 1960s through the 1980s, cities such as Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Zaria, Maiduguri, and several others enjoyed a vibrant cinema culture. Audiences filled cinema halls to watch Indian, Chinese, and American films. Going to the cinema was a cherished social activity, and many communities sustained thriving exhibition businesses long before home video became popular.
If Kannywood had emerged at the height of that golden era, it would probably have evolved into one of Africa’s most successful film industries. It would have inherited a ready-made exhibition network, a loyal cinema audience, and an established box-office culture capable of sustaining large-scale commercial filmmaking.
The pioneers of Kannywood understand this history. They encountered the last surviving cinemas in places like Kano, Jos, and Kaduna during the industry’s formative years. Those cinemas provided early exhibition opportunities before gradually disappearing under the combined pressures of economic decline, changing technology, and neglect.
That history offers an important lesson. If we are serious about growing Northern Nigeria’s film industry, we must look backward in order to move forward. Understanding why the cinema infrastructure collapsed is essential to rebuilding a sustainable future. The missing link in the industry’s value chain is not creativity. It is exhibition.
Every successful film industry depends on a healthy box office. Cinema exhibition is where films recover production costs, generate profits, create employment, and attract fresh investment. Without enough cinema screens, producers are forced to rely on alternative distribution channels that rarely provide the level of returns required to sustain long-term growth.
Northern Nigeria possesses the population, the stories, the talent, and the audience. What it lacks is adequate exhibition infrastructure.
This is why cinema development should become a strategic national priority.
The Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy, the Bank of Industry, NEXIM Bank, state governments, private investors, and the Presidency should work together to establish a comprehensive Cinema Expansion Initiative across Northern Nigeria. Such a programme should support the construction of modern multiplexes in major cities while encouraging smaller, community-based digital cinemas in secondary towns.
Doing so would stimulate investment, create thousands of jobs, expand the domestic box office, and give Kannywood, as well as Nollywood generally, a stronger commercial foundation.
The future of Nigerian cinema will not be determined solely by the number of films we produce. It will be determined by how many people have access to watching those films on the big screen.
While production creates content, distribution creates reach.
But it is the box office that creates a sustainable film industry.
If Nigeria truly intends to build a globally competitive creative economy, then rebuilding cinema infrastructure, especially across Northern Nigeria, must become an urgent national development priority.
* Sani Mu’azu, a former President of the Motion Picture Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MOPPAN), is a filmmaker based in Jos, Plateau State
