Veteran Nollywood actor, Nkem Owoh, popularly known as Osuofia, has clarified that Yoruba filmmakers pioneered Nigeria’s home-video industry but did not establish Nollywood, stressing that the industry’s name emerged after filmmakers had already begun producing movies.
Owoh made the clarification during an interview on Curiosity Made Me Ask, hosted by comedian and content creator Adebayo Abidemi, popularly known as Bae U.
The interview was shared on social media by Instablog9ja on Sunday.
The actor, responding to claims that he had attributed the origin of Nollywood to the Yoruba rather than the Igbo, said his comments had been misunderstood, noting that the name Nollywood was not in existence when filmmakers began their work.
“I never said Yoruba started Nollywood. When we started making films, there was no Nollywood as a name,” Owoh said, explaining that the name was eventually adopted after discussions among industry stakeholders.
He, however, maintained that Yoruba filmmakers played a significant role in establishing and popularising home-video productions in Nigeria, citing the contributions of late filmmaker Hubert Ogunde and veteran actor Adebayo Salami, popularly known as Oga Bello.
“Yoruba started home video. They made it very popular. Ogunde and Adebayo Papa are people whose works I love to watch,” the actor said.
Owoh also defended Ogunde’s Yoruba identity during the interview, insisting that the late filmmaker was Yoruba and had made significant contributions to the development of Nigerian cinema.
The debate over Nollywood’s origins reflects the different stages of Nigeria’s film industry. Yoruba travelling theatre practitioners, including Ogunde and Duro Ladipo, helped develop indigenous filmmaking through stage performances that later transitioned into film productions.
Their works contributed to the growth of Yoruba-language cinema decades before the commercial home-video boom.
However, the emergence of modern Nollywood is widely associated with the 1992 Igbo-language film Living in Bondage, produced by Kenneth Nnebue.
The film helped popularise the direct-to-video format and became a major turning point in the expansion of Nigeria’s film industry.
Owoh’s comments have added to the longstanding conversation over the respective contributions of Yoruba and Igbo filmmakers to the evolution of Nollywood, drawing a distinction between the early roots of home-video filmmaking and the emergence of the modern Nigerian film industry.
