Shaihu Umar, is set to begin another journey across Nigeria; Dr. Ali Nuhu, Nigerian Film Corporation’s (NFC) Managing Director has said. This comes fifty years after the celluloid format film, shot in 1979 was restored and digitized.
Speaking at the inaugural screening of Shaihu Umar in Jos, Plateau State recently (June 11, 2026), Dr. Nuhu, described the event as a significant milestone in the preservation and promotion of Nigeria’s audiovisual heritage. The restoration of Shaihu Umar, an adaptation of the novel written by Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Nigeria’s Prime Minister from 1957 – 1966, filmed and directed in 1976 by Adamu Halilu, a onetime Chief Executive of the Nigerian Film Corporation; undertaken by the NFC and its German partners, he said, should not be seen as just a revival of a Nigerian classic film but also a reaffirmation of NFC’s commitment to protecting the country’s audiovisual heritage through preservation, digitization, restoration, and access initiatives.
Addressing attendees which included filmmakers, scholars, archivists, students, members of the public, who thronged the 350-seat capacity screening auditorium of the National Film Institute (NFI) – Jos, to catch a glimpse of the iconic film, Dr. Nuhu called for stronger collaboration among government institutions, cultural organizations, filmmakers, and the private sector to support heritage national preservation efforts. The successful launch of the inaugural screening, he further said, will continue to inspire NFC, its partners, filmmakers, film audiences, archivists to promote the power of storytelling, cultural relevance, and historical significance of Nigerian films.
He praised past and ongoing partnership preservation efforts, which continues to strengthen knowledge exchange, professional capacity building, innovative preservation initiatives, and joint restoration of film projects, with capability upscaling of the NFVSA to safeguard the nation’s audiovisual memory, as outcomes.
Dr. Ali Nuhu, represented by Brian Etuk, NFC’s Director of Public Affairs, specifically commended the cooperation and partnership of its German counterparts which includes Goethe University, Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art – Berlin; Deutsches Filminstitut Filmmuseum- DFF as well as the University of Jos (Unijos), and Lagos Film Society for sustaining joint restoration and digitization initiatives beyond Shaihu Umar, the training and retraining of staff of the NFVSA, as well as other Nigerians through the Film Culture & Archiving Studies Master Degree Programme of the NFI & Unijos.
Highlighting the importance of archives as custodians of national memory, Mrs. Ajoke Ayiola, Head of the National Film Video and Sound Archive (NFVSA), described the successful restoration and digitization of Shaihu Umar as a testimony of the role archives play in the preservation the Nigeria’s stories, identities and historical experiences. Ahead of the screening, attendees had the privilege of being taken through the restoration journey of Shaihu Umar which included detailed identification processes, assessments, digitization, and restoration of the surviving elements of the film, as well as the collaborative efforts that made the project possible.
As Shaihu Umar begins its journey to other cities of Nigeria, further calls for collective action towards the preservation of Nigeria’s audiovisual memory, through the adoption and implementation of the National Policy on Audio-Visual Archiving, has become much more imperative.
