Veteran actor Nkem Owoh, better known as Osuofia, has clarified that the claim that Yoruba people founded Nollywood is a misunderstanding. In a recent statement, he said he never meant to attribute the birth of Nigeria’s film industry to any single ethnic group.
Owoh explained that the name “Nollywood” did not exist when he and other filmmakers began producing movies. “I never said Yoruba started Nollywood. When did Nollywood come out? When we started film, there was no Nollywood as a name,” he said.
He credited Yoruba filmmakers, notably veteran director Hubert Ogunde, for initiating the home‑video tradition that later became the backbone of the industry. “Ogunde is not Igbo. I am telling you that Yoruba started it,” Owoh added.
Owoh stressed that his remarks were about the origins of home video, not the creation of Nollywood itself. “Yoruba did not start Nollywood; they started home video and the rest,” he clarified.
While the Nigerian film industry, commonly known as Nollywood, is now one of the world’s largest film producers, its roots lie in the early home‑video boom of the 1980s and 1990s, a movement that many credit to pioneering Yoruba filmmakers.
<small>Source: Daily Post Nigeria — read the original story there.</small>
