Yoruba pioneered home videos, not Nollywood, Nkem Owoh clarifies

Veteran Nollywood actor Nkem Owoh, popularly known as Osuofia, has clarified the distinction between the pioneers of Nigeria’s home-video industry and the founders of Nollywood.

Owoh maintained that Yoruba filmmakers were the first to pioneer home-video productions in Nigeria but stressed that they should not be credited with starting Nollywood.

The actor made the clarification during an appearance on Curiosity Made Me Ask, a programme hosted by comedian and content creator Adebayo Abidemi, popularly known as Bae U.

In the interview, published on the host’s YouTube channel on Saturday, Owoh addressed a question about reports that he had claimed the Yoruba people, rather than the Igbo, started Nollywood.

He used the opportunity to explain his position on the history of Nigeria’s film industry and the contributions of different ethnic groups to its development.

The clarification comes amid an ongoing debate over the contributions of different ethnic groups to the development of Nigeria’s film industry.

The debate gained fresh attention in August 2026 when late veteran actor Francis Duru argued that the Igbo built Nollywood but that Yoruba filmmakers had become more dominant because of their ability to organise and promote their productions.

Duru, who died in October, had attributed much of the growth of the modern home-video industry in the 1990s and early 2000s to Igbo entrepreneurs.

Reacting to the reported interpretation of his earlier comments, Owoh said it was inaccurate to suggest that he claimed Yoruba people started Nollywood, explaining that the name did not exist when filmmakers began producing movies.

“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,” he said.

The actor, however, credited Yoruba filmmakers with popularising home-video productions in Nigeria, specifically mentioning veteran filmmaker Hubert Ogunde and Adebayo Papa as among those whose works he admired.

“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,” he said.

When the interviewer jokingly suggested that Ogunde was Igbo, Owoh disagreed, insisting that the late 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 added.

He further emphasised the distinction between the origins of home-video productions and Nollywood, stating: “The Yoruba did not start Nollywood. They started Home video.”

Historical accounts of Nigerian cinema trace the development of Yoruba filmmaking to travelling theatre groups led by figures such as Hubert Ogunde and Duro Ladipo, whose stage productions evolved into film and video productions decades before the commercial home-video boom of the 1990s.

However, the emergence of the modern commercial direct-to-video market is widely associated with the 1992 Igbo-language film Living in Bondage, produced by Kenneth Nnebue, which helped popularise the format and laid the foundation for the industry later known globally as Nollywood.

The name Nollywood itself emerged years after the early home-video productions, as the Nigerian film industry gained wider recognition internationally.

Owoh’s clarification has added another dimension to the longstanding debate over the respective contributions of Yoruba and Igbo filmmakers to the evolution of Nigerian cinema.

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