Speaking on Curiosity Made Me Ask, veteran actor Nkem Owoh says Yoruba pioneers led by Hubert Ogunde started Nigerian home video before Nollywood was named.

Published 10 Nov 2026, 08:45 GMT

2 min read

Nollywood actor Nkem Owoh, known as Osuofia — Nkem Owoh (Osuofia)

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Nkem Owoh says remarks crediting Yoruba filmmakers with pioneering Nigerian home video were misinterpreted as a claim that they founded Nollywood. The veteran Nigerian actor, also known as Osuofia, said he meant the earlier home-video tradition.

Speaking on the YouTube show *Curiosity Made Me Ask*, hosted by comedian Adebayo Abidemi (Bae U) in an episode published on Saturday, November 7, Owoh said the label Nollywood did not exist when his generation began making films.

"I never said Yoruba started Nollywood. When did Nollywood come out?"

"When we started film, there was no Nollywood as a name," Owoh said, explaining that industry stakeholders later brainstormed and adopted the name together.

Instead, Owoh credited Yoruba theatre and screen pioneers, including Hubert Ogunde and Adebayo Papa, with starting and popularising home-video productions across the country.

When the host jokingly suggested that Ogunde was Igbo, the actor replied: "Ogunde is not Igbo. I am telling you that Yoruba started it."

"Yoruba did not start Nollywood; they started home video and the rest," Owoh added. Arguments over whether Yoruba or Igbo practitioners built the Nigerian film industry resurfaced in August 2026 after late actor Francis Duru, who died in October, credited Igbo entrepreneurs with driving the 1990s video boom.

While Yoruba travelling theatre leaders such as Ogunde and Duro Ladipo brought stage plays to film and early video, historians widely trace the commercial direct-to-video market that evolved into modern Nollywood to Kenneth Nnebue's 1992 Igbo-language release *Living in Bondage*.

Araba IncoomAraba Incoom writes on multiple topics with a vast knowledge across different sector. You can almost call me an AI, after all, my initials are Araba Incoom.

&#39;Yoruba did not start Nollywood; they started home video&#39; – Osuofia

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