Netflix has announced a new partnership with the owner of Ebony Life TV, Mo Abudu, to bring two of Nigeria’s literary classics from book to screen.

The deal will see both partners bringing a series-adaptation of Lola Shoneyin’s “The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives” and a film-adaptation of Prof. Wole Soyinka’s “Death And The King’s Horseman”, to screen.

Netflix announced this on its Twitter handle @NetflixNaija on Friday morning.

📣We’ve got MAJOR news for you today! Netflix has partnered with acclaimed producer @MoAbudu to bring you two of Nigeria’s most beloved literary classics to screens around the world! 📚🎥 pic.twitter.com/3zAE4zAndH

— Netflix Naija (@NetflixNaija) June 12, 2020

In addition, Mo Abudu’s Ebony Life TV will also produce “two new Nigerian Originals plus licensed films AND a series for Netflix!”, the tweet read.

With this deal, the global streaming giant will be streaming both Nigerian classics to its subscribers across the globe.

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What you should know

Netflix is a global streaming entertainment service provider with over 183 million paid memberships in over 190 countries.

Mo Abudu first became popular in 2006 with her daytime talk show, Moments With Mo, but she has since then risen to become a brand in Nigerian entertainment.

She launched EbonyLife TV in 2012, the first fully Nigerian-owned entertainment channel to be carried on South African pay-TV platform DStv, and later ventured into feature film production, producing successful titles like The Wedding Party.

EbonyLife productions are credited with having the three highest-grossing Nigerian movies in the box office.

When the shares of Multichoice Group jumped by 8.5% to 102.62 rands on Wednesday at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, South Africa, a lot of observers were shocked by the news, as it had not recorded such feat in months.

The development, some observers said it could be attributed to the 2020 full-year result of the group, which was released on Wednesday. The pay-TV announced a 5% growth in its subscribers base when it rose to 19.5 million. While it recorded revenue growth of 3% to close at R51.4 billion, its core headline earnings were up by 38%. No wonder, it could afford to pay a dividend of R2.5 billion (N57.9 billion) to its shareholders.

Other observers argue that the development could also be attributed to the news the group broke in the financial report. The group stated that it had signed a deal with Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com, its US rivals to offer its streaming services through its new decoder. This move, no doubt, would help Africa’s largest pay-TV firm retain teeming subscribers and attract potential viewers.

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The deal was disclosed in MultiChoice’s results presentation, tagged ‘Improve Retention’ shared on its site and seen by Nairametrics.

Multichoice partners Netflix

This could indicate ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’ move, as the duo rivals have been giving Multichoice run for its money, creating greater competition, offering cheaper and faster internet speeds, which enabled them to stamp their feet on the continent.

How would Multichoice benefit from the deal?

While observers await Multichoice’s announcement on how the move could affect it’s monthly fee probably in a few weeks, a top executive of the group explained that it is a win-win situation for the company.

“What would typically happen is we would get a commission on whatever revenue gets generated by customers coming from our platform,” Chief Financial Officer Tim Jacobs said in a phone interview, according to Bloomberg.

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Nigeria’s contributions to the figures

The financials stated that the group recorded 8% year-on-year subscribers growth in Nigeria, highest in Africa, as it recorded losses in Zimbabwe (41%), Zambia 11%, Angola 2%, while Kenya was constant. It also recorded a 22% growth in subscribers revenue in Nigeria.

No doubt, it stated in the report that the group expects it’s new bouquets and 1H FY2020 migration would earn more for the company by the end of the 2021 financial year-end.

Meanwhile, Netflix has also made an effort to produce more African content. Dramas “Queen Sono” and “Blood and Water”, both South African, debuted on the service this year, supported by extensive marketing campaigns.

“There is little overlap between content on Multichoice’s Showmax, that is now 50% local, and a service like Netflix at the moment, hence we find deals with other video-on-demand services complementary,” said Jacobs.

Impact of COVID-19

The full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the business is yet unknown, MultiChoice explained that it expects weaker economic growth and higher unemployment in many of its markets. “The TV provider continues to film local productions, taking specific precautions such as splitting production teams,” Jacobs added.

When the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company was set up in 1988, no one was left in doubt about the management culture – total quality. For a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) that would be expected to efficiently transport crude oil to the four refineries and ensure the security of supply of petroleum products to the domestic market at low operating costs, nothing less would be accepted.

This defined culture of total quality management has seen the company go under the knife severally, to streamline and make it into a “lean, efficient, business-focused, transparent and accountable national oil company in keeping with international best practices”, according to the erstwhile GMD, Ibe Kachikwu.

This was the same culture at play when Ada Nwagbara-Oyetunde was appointed new Managing Director of the Nigerian Pipelines and Storage Limited (NPSL), the subsidiary Company of NNPC responsible for the crude oil deliveries to the refineries, supply and distribution of petroleum products through a network of pipeline and storage depots as well as the marine movement of petroleum products by vessels.

As the new boss, Nwagbara-Oyetunde has high expectations hanging down her neck.

The downstream sector has been threatened by pipeline vandalism which interrupts the supply of petroleum products across the country. It remains to be seen how much Nwagbara-Oyetunde can do to bring this menace to a decisive end. Mallam Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director of NNPC, had pointed out that 2019 alone saw Nigeria lose about N230.2 billion to oil theft. This is the situation she is expected to prevent and reverse in her four-year tenure.

President Muhammadu Buhari approved her appointment as a step to “reposition the Corporation for delivery of the TAPE Agenda” and the “strategic priorities” of the NNPC. His statement was very clear when it added that she would be expected to tackle the problem of oil theft and product diversion across the country while transporting crude to the nation’s four refineries.

The recent events in the global market have seen OPEC displaced as a regulator, leaving the oil-producing countries to compete for a market share based on their price and supply. This, inadvertently, means that the larger share of the market could go to the country with more than sufficient supply and willing to sell at a lower price. This is going to be quite a feat for Nigeria to perform as the current indices have already rendered her incapable of competing with the likes of Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

The no-nonsense trailblazer, as she has been described, is definitely going to find her management and planning expertise invaluable at a time like this.

Until her appointment in January 2020, Nwagbara-Oyetunde was the General Manager/Technical Adviser, Administration, to the Group Managing Director of NNPC. Though only in this capacity for two years, her colleagues have described her management and planning expertise as ‘invaluable’.

She was responsible for daily operations, administrative functions and finances, as well as advising the Group Managing Director on critical administrative decisions. Daunting as it was, she took the role as an opportunity to flex her administrative muscles.

Her goal-driven and no-nonsense attitude have received credit for her smooth and steady rise in a career which started as a Personnel officer in pipeline product and marketing company. Working as a personnel officer gave her the grounding in personnel management which she would later find useful in her career. It also formed the basis for some of the professional courses in management and leadership she took at the Harvard Business School.

She joined the NNPC in 1991 and followed a steady career progression through till 2010 when she was transferred to National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) to work as Deputy Manager Human Resources.

NAPIMS is a Corporate Services Unit in the Exploration and Production (E&P) Directorate of the NNPC, responsible for managing Nigeria Government’s investment in the Upstream sector of the Oil and Gas Industry. Functioning as Deputy Manager in this unit took Nwagabara-Oyetunde beyond personnel management, to resource management.

A successful five-year stint at NAPIM earned her a promotion to the position of Manager Human Resources in the National Engineering and Technical Company (NETCO) in 2015. Within a few years, Nwagbara-Oyetunde had supervised a collaboration between the company and two other local engineering companies to successfully execute an EPC project with the Nigerian Gas Company.

Three years later, she moved up the ladder to become General Manager/Technical Assistant to the Group Managing Director of NNPC in 2018, clinching a spot as one of the female ground-breakers in the human resources management of the oil and gas industry,

The letter confirming her appointment reads, in part: “Nwagbara-Oyetunde would be expected to confront headlong the challenges bedevilling the downstream sector where pipelines vandalism had threatened products supply across the country. Her energy would be needed to oversee the safety of NNPC’s pipelines stretching over 5,120 kilometres across the country.  

“She would also be expected to tackle the problems of oil theft and products diversion across the country.”  

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No doubt, her reputation as a no-nonsense technocrat and a meticulous but aggressive go-getter had gone way ahead of her.

The NPSL is also expected to profitably and efficiently market refined petroleum products in the domestic as well as export markets especially in the ECOWAS sub-region, provide marine services and also maintain uninterrupted movement of refined petroleum products from the local refineries.

Her wealth of experience and knowledge from professional courses in management and leadership may well come in handy for her, given the stack of responsibilities before her.