Veteran filmmaker, Fidelis Duker, has countered the notion on social media that Nollywood movies are responsible for the recent upsurge in ritual killings in the country.

Duker, who is also the Executive Director of the Abuja International Film Festival, told Saturday Beats, “I think to a large extent, I differ. In recent times, the generation of Nigerians involved in ritual killings are within the age bracket of 17and 26. Most of them did not watch those kinds of films. Most of the ritual films were produced about 10 and 15 years ago. What I am saying in essence is that Nollywood films cannot be blamed for the increase in ritual killings in the country. In films, even those who engaged in ritual killings usually ended up paying the price for it.”

Fidelis Duker also blamed the dearth of moral values as one of the reasons for the malaise. He said, “In a recent Facebook post, I said one of the causes is that we have lost our moral values. A child of 17 years old would bring a new car home and the mother would be celebrating it. What work has he done at 17? A girl in year one in a tertiary institution would be using an IPhone of about N500,000, and one begins to wonder where she got the money from? Those are the issues we should look at. We should not look for an escape route and blame Nollywood films (for all these ills).”

Source: Punch