Veteran Nollywood actor Nkem Owoh, popularly generally known as Osuofia, has clarified that Yoruba filmmakers pioneered Nigeria’s home-video business however didn’t begin Nollywood.
Owoh made the clarification throughout an look on Curiosity Made Me Ask, a present hosted by comic and content material creator Adebayo Abidemi, popularly generally known as Bae U.
The actor was responding to questions on his earlier feedback on the contributions of Yoruba and Igbo filmmakers to the event of Nollywood.
He dismissed claims that he had stated Yoruba individuals based Nollywood, explaining that the identify didn’t exist when he and different filmmakers started producing films.
He stated the identify Nollywood was adopted later after business stakeholders met to debate concepts on learn how to develop and model the Nigerian movie business.
“First of all, you have given me this wrong accusation that I said, Yoruba started Nollywood. No. When we started the thing, there was no Nollywood as a name,” he stated.
However, Owoh credited Yoruba filmmakers, significantly veteran filmmaker Hubert Ogunde and Adebayo Salami, popularly generally known as Oga Bello, for pioneering and popularising home-video productions in Nigeria.
He maintained that Yoruba filmmakers performed a big role in the early growth of home-video leisure.
“The Yoruba did not start Nollywood. They started home video,” he added.
His clarification comes amid renewed debate over the contributions of Yoruba and Igbo filmmakers to the Nigerian movie business.
In August 2026, late Nollywood actor Francis Duru had argued that Igbo entrepreneurs performed a serious role in constructing fashionable Nollywood via the home-video growth of the Nineties and early 2000s.
The 1992 movie Living in Bondage, produced by Kenneth Nnebue, is broadly credited with serving to popularise the business home-video market that turned the muse of fashionable Nollywood.
