Osuofia clarifies: Yoruba started home video, not Nollywood
Veteran actor Nkem Owoh (Osuofia) has pushed back against claims that Yoruba people started Nollywood, saying his comments were about the origins of home video in Nigeria, not the Nollywood brand. "When we started film, there was no Nollywood as a name," he said, explaining the term was adopted later after industry discussions. Osuofia credited Yoruba filmmakers—including legend Hubert Ogunde—for pioneering the home-video tradition that made Nigerian film popular. "Ogunde is not Igbo. I am telling you that Yoruba started it," he stated. But he drew a sharp distinction: "Yoruba did not start Nollywood; they started home video and the rest." The clarification comes amid ongoing debates about Nollywood's ethnic origins. Osuofia's point: home video as a distribution model began with Yoruba filmmakers, while "Nollywood" emerged later as an industry label. For viewers and creators, this reframes the history—not as a single-group invention but as layered evolution from Ogunde's travelling theatre to home video to the global Nollywood brand.