Osuofia clarifies: Yoruba filmmakers pioneered home-video, not Nollywood

Veteran actor Nkem Owoh (Osuofia) set the record straight on Bae U's "Curiosity Made Me Ask" show: Yoruba filmmakers pioneered Nigeria's home-video industry, but they didn't start Nollywood—the name didn't exist yet.

"When we started the thing, there was no Nollywood as a name," Owoh said, crediting veterans Hubert Ogunde and Adebayo Salami (Oga Bello) for popularising home-video productions. The Nollywood brand came later when industry stakeholders met to develop and brand the Nigerian film industry.

This clarifies August's debate sparked by late actor Francis Duru, who argued Igbo entrepreneurs built modern Nollywood through the 1990s home-video boom—kickstarted by Kenneth Nnebue's 1992 hit "Living in Bondage."

The distinction matters: Yoruba filmmakers created the home-video culture; Igbo entrepreneurs commercialised it into an industry; stakeholders later branded it Nollywood. Each group played a distinct, essential role.

Understanding this history shapes how we credit creative labour and invest in the industry's future. Which chapter of Nollywood's evolution do you think gets overlooked most?

SOURCE: https://dailypost.ng/2026/11/09/osuofia-speaks-on-yoruba-filmmakers-role-in-nollywoods-emergence/