Nollywood, Omotola, and her moral high-ground posturing — by Chioma Ahaghotu

Omotola Jalade Ekeinde often slips into this purist, moral high-ground posture when talking about Nollywood, as if she’s standing outside the very system she benefited massively from. And the honest question is: wetin she dey act sef today?

Legacy is not the same thing as relevance, and contribution in the past does not automatically confer authority over the present.

Yes, she and her cohort did their time. They worked, they were visible, and they contributed to the early growth of the industry. They were legends. That part is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the constant lamenting about what Nollywood “should be” when many of them failed to become the kind of producers, studio builders, or capital attractors they now insist the industry needs. You cannot keep demanding infrastructure you never helped to build when you had the platform, access, and leverage to do so.

When Nollywood was at a critical point where it needed evolution, structure, and innovation, what did many of that generation do? They checked out. They ran to the US and UK, genuinely believing hype would convert into Hollywood careers. No pipeline, no strategy, no ownership, just national fame. And reality humbled them. Hollywood does not run on nostalgia or domestic stardom; it runs on systems, representation, agents, unions, and capital. Most of them had none of that.

Meanwhile, while some were demarketing Nollywood, constantly talking about how it wasn’t good enough, how it needed “standards” and “globalization,” Funke Akindele stayed. She didn’t just act; she built. She put in sweat both behind and in front of the camera. She learned production, distribution, audience psychology, marketing, and monetization. She owned the pipeline. She failed publicly, learned fast, and scaled. That is the difference.

So when people like Omotola moralize, it rings hollow. Because growth doesn’t come from commentary; it comes from control of process. The people shaping Nollywood today are not the loudest critics; they are the ones who stayed long enough to understand the market and brutal enough to compete in it.

There’s also a very uncomfortable truth many veterans avoid: timing carried a lot of them. They rose in an era with:

Very limited entertainment options
No streaming saturation
No social media distractions
Home video as the dominant medium

People sat at home and watched whatever was available. Stardom was easier to consolidate because competition was thinner and attention was cheaper.

Today, that world is gone. The market is brutal. The audience is fragmented. The talent pool is global.

Many of yesterday’s stars would not break out today, not because they lack talent, but because the ecosystem no longer rewards mere visibility.

So this constant moralization, “Nollywood should do better,” “the industry lacks quality,” “we deserve more respect,” ignores one key fact: industries evolve whether you keep up or not. Respect is not inherited; it is earned repeatedly.

Nobody is asking you to dance. Innovate your own methods. Hollywood marketing does not work in Nigeria because the supporting structures do not exist. Your audience is not sitting in front of a TV waiting to learn about new films from “media rounds” alone. You must understand how the audience has evolved in order to sell to them.

Nollywood did not move forward because people complained alone. It moved forward because a few people stayed, adapted, took risks, and built systems. Anyone who wants to be taken seriously in today’s Nollywood conversation has to answer a simple question:

What did you build when it was your turn, besides your brand?