Majority of the Movie-goers in Nigeria Are Yoruba

Majority of the movie-goers in Nigeria are Yoruba who were the first movie-goers in the country since 1903 when the first films were shown at the Glover Memorial Hall on the Lagos Island and followed by the Aláàrìnjó Yoruba traveling theatres that influenced the cinema culture in south western Nigeria. And  "Kongi's Harvest", the (first feature film by a Nigerian  filmmaker was done in 1970 by Francis Oladele, the Father of Nigerian cinema. 

Yorubas love drama from stage to the silver screen. The longest queues at any cinema in Nigeria were Yoruba movie-goers at the National Arts Theatre in Lagos city as they trooped to watch Yoruba films by Dr. Ola Balogun, Chief Hubert Ogunde, Moses Olaiya , Adeyemi Afolayan, aka Ade Love) and Abiodun Babajide, aka Jab Adu in the 1970s and 1980s.  And the highest grossing movies in Nollywood have been made by Yoruba filmmakers, Funke Akindele-Bello @funkejenifaakindele (Omo Ghetto, The Saga), Kemi Adetiba @kemiadetiba (The Wedding Party 1) and Niyi Akinmolayan (The Wedding Party 2).

- By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

Publisher/Editor, 

NOLLYWOOD MIRROR®Series 

247 Nigeria (@247nigeria) / Twitter

https://mobile.twitter.com/247nigeria

https://www.amazon.com/author/ekenyerengozimichaelchima

How does a stargazer paint a star-studded sky?

Shaibu Husseini

How does a stargazer paint a star-studded sky?

Title: Moviedom…the Nollywood Narratives: Clips on the Pioneers
Author: Shaibu Husseini
Publisher: All Media International Ltd. [for African Film Academy: AFA)
Year of publication: 2010.
Reviewer: Professor Hyginus Ekwuazi

Moviedom…the Nollywood Narratives: Clips on Pioneers is somewhat like a sponge or a compressed towel. Its inherent absorbent capability vis-à-vis its information density, is, on the whole, remarkable. For neatly tucked into its 166 pages are: 67 biographical sketches of Nollywood stars [13 in Part 1: In the Beginning; 54 in Part 2: Nollywood is Born]; and a roll call of 17 tars [It’s a Wrap!] if we remove the 67 profiled stars in Parts 1 and 2, the balance of 120 becomes the number of stars yet to be profiled. In other words, Moviedom…the Nollywood Narratives is, like Nollywood itself, a continuing project—not necessarily like the typical Nollywood story that is incomplete if it doesn’t run into part 2 and beyond.




This book carries with it the burden of experience—the experience comprising Shuibu’s beat in and around Nollywood and his years as the Chair of the AMAA College of Screeners. However, in no instance does the work sag under such a heavy under. Rather, this rarefied experience has been nuanced into the work in a laidback manner that makes the book as highly reader friendly as it is readable. What more does one ask of a book?

If it is indeed true that every book contains within it the argument for how it should be read, then the subtle argument within these pages is this: a more revealing close-up on the work can result only from the interrogation of two inter-related contexts. In the first place, the broader context of the work—its antecedents, so to say. In the second place, the significance. Since the latter proceeds from the former, both are, to that extent, coterminous.

One needn’t look too far to see all too clearly how Moviedom…the Nollywood Narratives happens to be at the centre of a widening gyre of irony. In the early 90’s, Nigerian filmmakers signed a petition against Jimmy Ate, then the General Manager, National Theatre, for allowing reversal films/home videos to be screened in the cinema halls of the National Theatre—the very same National Theatre in whose banquet hall Nollywood stars gathered on Friday, 17th Dec, 2010] for the launch of this work that is to all intents and purposes a celebration of the home video. And that other blockbuster of an irony: till the middle 90’s the Nigerian Film Corporation [NFC] was still shouting from the roof tops that its statutory mandate didn’t include the video—the very same NFC whose current head and whose one time chairman have been profiled here among the stars of Nollywood.

The point here is that from 1903 when the first movie was shown in the country to 2005 when Nollywood was rated the second largest film industry in the world, the Nigerian film industry has passed through four defining stages: the Colonial Film Unit stage [the cine was the only format and the documentary the major genre]; the post-Independence period [again, the only format was the cine and the feature virtually eclipsed activities in any other genre]; the SAP [Structural Adjustment Programme] stage [the feature continued to dominate but the reversal film took over from the cine]; and, finally, the Post-SAP period [the home video completely took over the industry].

True, in the movement from periphery to social centricity, no single film, not even Living in Bondage, has done for us what The Sound of Music did for the United States. However, its short history notwithstanding, the home video has managed to become the cultural property of us all. It has joined politics and football as the admission tickets into the marketplace of social intercourse.

Herein, then, lies, perhaps, the greatest significance of this work: it provides us the much needed backward glance over the roads we have travelled.

Okome, unarguably one of the leading scholars of Nollywood, is insistent in his argument that the Nollywood film is, in effect, a broad canvass for the social history of this day and age. If we accept this argument, Moviedom…the Nollywood Narratives automatically acquires the value-added significance as the compendium of the films of the period from which this social history has to be distilled.

Two structural factors killed the celluloid film in Nigeria. One: the march of technology which brought with it a rival and cheaper means of making and packaging films. Two: Babangida’s structural adjustment programme which beggared the Naira in the international marketplace—making it impossible to sustain the celluloid culture.

But even while it was thriving, the celluloid was, as it were, wrapped in an asphyxiating blanket of anonymity. For instance, the British Film Institute dossier on the African film, issued in the early 80’s, lists only one non-Francophone filmmaker: Ola Balogun. In contradistinction, the home video is being very adequately documented both in academic studies and in works that target the general reader. An example of the latter that quickly comes to mind is Orji Onoko’s Glimpses of our Stars. Shaibu’s Moviedom…the Nollywood Narratives is spun from the same thread.

It is in the light of the foregoing that we must locate the gaps and dents in the work. Each profile here is like a citation. There is really nothing bad in this; but, to my mind, each profiled personality here would have come alive if only some words had been put in their mouth—if each star had spoken, briefly, on, say, their life value and or on their view of the industry, in the context of their role.

I know it’s arguable—but Nollywood is not unlike the child who stands on the shoulders of a giant and is, thereby, able to see much further than his mates: without the work done by the celluloid filmmakers, would Nollywood have been this big? I doubt it. All I am trying to say is that the tripod of the celluloid period ought to have been included or given adequate space in this work.

The tripod I’m alluding to? Ola Balogun/Francis Oladele [whose works were the first to put Nigeria on the global map of filmmaking]; Eddie Ugbomah [who holds the record for the highest number—13—of celluloid films]; and Hubert Ogunde/Ade Love [in whose footsteps the Yoruba filmmakers of today are following].

If Shaibu’s consistent featuring of Nollywood on the pages of The Guardian on Saturday and Sunday and his painstaking activities in the African Film Academy haven’t by now removed any lingering doubts about his love for the industry, this book should do that. Take it for all in all, Moviedom…the Nollywood Narratives does come across as Shaibu Hussein’s passionate love song to an industry he ardently loves—Nollywood, that burgeoning industry that we praise and cavil in the same breath.

~ Hyginus EKWUAZI
Department of Theatre Arts
University of Ibadan
Ibadan.

The Inglorious Basterds of Nollywood

The Inglorious Basterds of Nollywood

Have you seen Quentin Tarantino's highest-grossing film Inglorious Basterds?
You have to know the "Inglorious Basterds", a group of Jewish-American guerilla soldiers led by the ruthless Lt. Aldo Raine during the Nazi occupation of France in World War 2 and the role they played to understand the following analysis of the fifth column posing and posturing as the leaders of Nollywood, but are actually the exploiting and plundering the film industry.

Nollywood is no longer the second largest movie industry in the world as reported by UNESCO. The UNESCO report was based on statistics of the quantity of home videos produced in Nigeria when Nollywood was at its peak in the late 1990s and early 2000s before rampant piracy and the economic downturn changed the fortunes of Nollywood and left most of the stakeholders in dire straits.

The worst hit have been the English speaking practitioners dominated by Igbos, but the more down-to-earth and better organized Yoruba practitioners have managed to weather the storm, while the other producers of videos in Edo, Hausa, Efik and Ibibio have been doing their best in spite of their own professional inadequacies.


There are those who are the Real McCoy of the Nigerian film industry like the foremost Nigerian filmmaker Dr. Ola Balogun, Chief Eddie Ugbomah, Francis Oladele, Brenda Shehu, Sadiq Balewa, Tunde Kelani, Femi Lasode, the Adesanya brothers, Ladi Ladebo, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, Mildred Owoh,Tade Ogidan, Tony Abulu, Francis Onwuchie, the Amatas. Femi Odugbemi, Kunle Afolayan who is bearing the mantle of the legacy of his father Adeyemi Afolayan, aka “Ade Love”, Joe Brown, Didi Chika, Lucky Onyekachi Ejim, Gugu Michaels, Faruk Lasaki, Chike Ibekwe, Mark Kusare, Kenneth Gyang and the new kids on the block, Niyi Akinmolayan and Chineze Anyaene whose first features "Kajola" and "Ijé: The Journey" are outstanding indicators of the future of the Nigerian film industry. The other Real McCoy can be found in the heart and soul of Nollywood, such as the accomplished Amaka Igwe, Fidelis Duker, Lancelot Imasuen, Teco Benson, Kingsley Ogoro, the ambitious team of Emem Isong and Desmond Elliot and those in the same league with them.

2
Separating the sheep from the goats, let us now look at the good, the bad and the ugly in Nollywood.

“Nollywood habours lots of greedy producers.”
~ Kate Henshaw-Nuttal, Sunday Punch, August 1, 2010.

Notable role models and outstanding key players in Nollywood such as Enebeli Elebuwa, Okey Ogunjiofor, Ejike Asiegbu, Madu Chikwendu, Justus Esiri, Olu Jacobs, Joke Jacobs, Prince Jide Kosoko, Pete Edochie, Glory Young, Ngozi Ezeonu, Joke Silva-Jacobs, Rachel Oniga, Saint Obi, Hilda Dokubo, Kate Henshaw-Nuttal, Chika Onu, Zeb Ejiro, Chico Ejiro, Kingsley Ogoro, Lancelot Imasuen, Teco Benson, Emem Isong, Shan George, Genevieve Nnaji, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, Francis Duru, Charles Okafor, Jim Iyke, Ramsey Noah, Riita Dominic and others in the same League have been busy trying their best to rejuvenate the ingenuity of the heyday of Nollywood. But there are those who have resorted to dirty partisan politics contrary to professional ethics. They are running a get-rich-quick racket in Nollywood.


Yes, desperate times call for desperate measures, but going bonkers will only worsen the situation. Frustration often pushes people to acts of desperation in the struggle for survival or trying to catch up with the Joneses. The critical state of Nollywood is also bringing out the best and the worst characters of the principal practitioners and other stakeholders as shown by the petty squabbles in the guilds. The squabbles of the opposing camps and factions of those at loggerheads have left the troubled guilds in disarray and opportunists are fishing in the troubled waters.

You have to see Quentin Tarantino's highest-grossing film so far Inglorious Basterds to understand the following dramatization of the analysis of the crisis in Nollywood.

Those who attended the so called unveiling of the logo of the illegal AMP-Eko International Film Festival on July 29, 2010, reported the roll call of the those posing and posturing as the movers and shakers of Nollywood as almost everyone turned out in the best outfit from the wardrobe with roguish smiles on the red carpet. But among them were pirates, failed filmmakers, incompetent administrators and their sycophants making up the panoramic rogues’ gallery.
Many of them were taking sides in partisan politics as they supported the gubernatorial quest of Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, the former governor of the apex bank and were disgraced when he lost. And now they have rushed to endorse President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to contest in the presidential election in 2011.

These inglorious desperados of Nollywood who have run out of ideas for new movies are either ganging up to hijack a film festival as part of their retirement plan, heal the wounds of their bruised egos or to settle scores.
They have used all sorts of foul play in conceit and deceit to mislead many ignorant green horns, disillusioned practitioners and stakeholders like lying to Chief Eddie Ugbomah to chair an international film festival they have attempted to hijack since last year when they lost in the power tussle over how to share the booty from the 6th ION International Film Festival held in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.

I wonder what lies they would have told Chief Eddie Ugbomah who already has dismissed them in Nollywood is nothing wood posted on NigeriaFilms.com, Nollywood At Large on Tue, 15 May 2007. And I do not think supporting trademark piracy is part of his agenda as he has defined in Repositioning Nigerian Film Industry, My Agenda posted in Nollywood Affairs on Wed, 18 Feb 2009, of NigeriaFilms.com. I trust that the veteran filmmaker is too intelligent to be fooled by these corrupt desperados.

Azuh Amatus of the Daily Sun said there is no longer sanity in Nollywood, because all that has been bastardized.
We have to expose the inglorious bastards who have bastardized Nollywood and secure the future of the Nigerian film industry.


~ By Orikinla Osinachi

Dr. Ola Balogun: Nigeria Is Going To Cannes To Fry And Sell "Akara"?

Dr. Ola Balogun: Nigeria Is Going To Cannes To Fry And Sell "Akara"?
« on: Today at 07:06:48 PM »

As we were waiting to buy fuel at the filling station on the Commercial Avenue in Sabo, Lagos, Nigeria, I exchanged greetings with Nigeria’s foremost filmmaker, Dr. Ola Balogun and the author of the travelogue The Magic Land of Nigeria.

Orikinla: Nigeria is going to Cannes.

Dr. Ola Balogun: To do what? To fry and sell Akara?

Orikinla: Our magazine is going there to report the truth about what Nigeria is going to do at the Cannes Film Festival.

Dr. Ola Balogun: Nigerians don’t like to hear the truth.

We smiled.

Nigerian administrators of the film industry like the Nigerian Film Corporation and others have been making an annual pilgrimage to the Cannes Film Festival to display their audio-visual products at a pavilion and have never been able to make any film that has qualified for the screening and competition. Notable Nigerian director and founder /CEO of the Abuja International Film Festival, Fidelis Duker said it is an annual jamboree for Nigeria to go to Cannes and waste millions of naira to display their ignorance.