Yoruba Started Home Video, Not Nollywood – Osuofia

Veteran actor Nkem Owoh, popularly known as Osuofia, has dismissed claims that he said Yoruba people started Nollywood, saying his comments were misunderstood.

In an interview on Curiosity Made Me Ask, Owoh said he meant the origin of home video in Nigeria, not the creation of Nollywood as a name.

“I never said Yoruba started Nollywood. When did Nollywood come out? When we started film, there was no Nollywood as a name,” he said.

According to him, the name Nollywood came later, after filmmakers met, exchanged ideas and agreed on it.

He credited Yoruba filmmakers with pioneering the home video tradition that later shaped the industry, singling out veteran filmmaker Hubert Ogunde for popularising it.

“Ogunde is not Igbo. I am telling you that Yoruba started it,” Owoh said.

He stressed that while Yoruba filmmakers started home video, they did not start Nollywood.

“Yoruba did not start Nollywood; they started home video and the rest,” he added.