Veteran Nollywood actor Nkem Owoh, widely known as Osuofia, has moved to clarify his earlier remarks on the origins of Nigeria’s home-video industry, stressing that Yoruba filmmakers pioneered home video productions rather than Nollywood itself.
The clarification came during an appearance on Curiosity Made Me Ask, a show hosted by comedian and content creator Adebayo Abidemi, popularly known as Bae U. The interview was published on the host’s YouTube channel on Saturday, and it saw the actor respond to a question about his alleged claim that Yoruba people, rather than the Igbo, started Nollywood.
Osuofia Rejects the Framing of His Earlier Comments
Addressing the question directly, Owoh rejected the suggestion that he had credited the Yoruba with founding Nollywood. He explained that the name Nollywood did not exist when he and other filmmakers began producing films, and that it was adopted later following discussions among industry stakeholders.
He said, “First of all, you have given me this wrong accusation that I said Yoruba started Nollywood. No. Yoruba started this film on… when did Nollywood come out? When we started the thing, there was no Nollywood as a name. We sat together and we’re banding, you know, ideas and all that, how the thing is going to come to fruition. And eventually, we chose Nollywood.”
Credit for Yoruba Pioneers of Home Video
While distancing himself from the claim about Nollywood’s origins, the veteran actor credited Yoruba filmmakers, including the veteran filmmaker Hubert Ogunde and Adebayo, with popularising home-video productions in Nigeria.
He said, “So, Yoruba started the thing. They made the thing very popular home video and all that. Yes, they did. And I’ve said it several. Okay. Ogunde and Adebayo Papa. These are the people I love to watch their thing.”
When the interviewer jokingly suggested that Ogunde was Igbo, Owoh disagreed, insisting that the veteran filmmaker was Yoruba.
“Ogunde is not Igbo. I’m telling you that Yoruba started it. When Ogunde was out, I don’t think there was any Igbo man who was that popular in that,” he said.
He went on to draw a clear distinction between the origins of Nollywood and the home-video tradition, saying, “The Yoruba did not start Nollywood. They started Home video.”
Background to the Debate
Osuofia’s clarification comes amid long-running debates about the ethnic contributions to Nigerian cinema. The discussion gained fresh attention in August 2026 when the late veteran Nollywood actor Francis Duru argued that the Igbo built Nollywood but that the Yoruba community has become more dominant because of its ability to organise and promote its own.
Duru, who died in October, contended that the modern Nollywood home-video industry was largely driven by Igbo entrepreneurs during the 1990s and early 2000s. At the time, Osuofia was reported to have dismissed the claim, saying that the Yoruba people were already deeply involved in filmmaking, theatre and stage performances long before the Igbo-led home-video boom of the 1990s.
Historical accounts note that Yoruba travelling theatre groups, led by figures such as Hubert Ogunde and Duro Ladipo, among others, transitioned from stage to early film and video productions in the decades before the 1990s boom. The commercial explosion of the direct-to-video market is widely associated with the 1992 Igbo-language hit Living in Bondage, produced by Kenneth Nnebue, which helped popularise the format that later became globally known as Nollywood. The term “Nollywood” itself was coined years later.
Osuofia’s Clarification in Context
The actor’s latest remarks appear intended to separate two distinct strands of Nigerian film history: the Yoruba-led home-video tradition that predated the 1990s, and the Nollywood brand that emerged afterwards. By acknowledging the contributions of both Yoruba pioneers and the filmmakers who later coalesced around the Nollywood name, Owoh positions himself as a witness to an industry whose origins are more layered than a single ethnic narrative suggests.
For an industry that has long grappled with questions of ownership and recognition, the debate is unlikely to fade quickly. But Osuofia’s intervention adds an important voice to the conversation, one that insists on precision when discussing the roots of Nigerian cinema.
