nollywood Actor Francis Duru has said that Yoruba filmmakers have surpassed their Igbo counterparts in film releases and on streaming platforms because they organized early and protected their cultural stories, while Igbo producers did not do the same.
Duru spoke on Gbam, a show aired on Yan Content Factory’s YouTube channel on Friday, where he was asked why Yoruba producers now dominate major release windows in theaters and platforms like Netflix.
“When they say charity begins at home, that’s what has happened to the Yoruba. We need to learn from them. If you don’t protect your own, if you don’t project your own, you know, who will?” Duru said.
He said Igbo filmmakers should not resent their Yoruba peers for the imbalance but should examine their own missed opportunities.
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“The Yorubas created an opportunity for themselves and used it very well. So why weren’t you learning? Why didn’t you see it? By that same concept: you think you’re the big man, but you forget that there will come a time when you will have to be expansive, proactive and ask yourself, ‘There is a new market space. Why am I not there?’
“They (Yorubas) perfected themselves. They gathered together, they called their people who were able to spend money and all that. So the Yoruba-centric nature protected their own. Don’t be angry with them. These are people who saw their own and protected them. What happened to you?”
The actor also decried the near absence of stories about Igbo heritage on Netflix, contrasting it with what he described as a deliberate effort by the Yoruba to safeguard their own narratives.
“We created an industry. It’s very embarrassing. Go to Netflix today; you hardly see an Igbo movie that talks about Igbo heritage. It’s upsetting.”
On the underutilization of notable Igbo historical figures and literary works, Duru noted that storytellers from other regions have stepped in to fill the void.
“How many great men do we have in Nigeria? When was the last time you saw the epic of one of these great men?” -Duru asked. “We have great writers who even write for Yorubas. We see Yorubas crossing over to write Igbo stories, like Ahamefuna, and ruining who we are.”
Tracing the roots of the setback, Duru said many of the early Igbo pioneers in the industry approached cinema as merchants rather than artists building something lasting, prioritizing quick profits over structure and professionalism.
“It was just merchandising. Not passion. They just wanted to make money,” he said. “They were busy with the power, the authority and the money they earned to the point that they didn’t know they were losing it… That’s why they left; that’s why they lost. Where are they now? Those names don’t make any sense.”
As to why older Nollywood films still evoke nostalgia, Duru attributed it to the discipline and thoroughness applied in productions of the time, as opposed to what he called the rushed approach common today.
“That seal of nostalgia is because it was content, passion and people sat and thought about every moment, even from the audition to the rehearsal and the casting. It was very procedural,” he said. “But today everything is taking steps and jumping, today writing, tomorrow going and selling. There is an influx of so many people that ‘everyone can do it’. People no longer respect the ethics and principles that guide everything that is done in life.”
“We don’t have an idea of the necessary principles that built our success; once you can’t define them, then you are progressing by mistake and you can’t pass that knowledge on to someone else,” he added.
Duru, however, said he does not see the growth of new forms of content as a threat to Nollywood, but instead describes it as a sign of the industry’s expansion, while calling on its veteran figures to set the standard going forward.
“Everything adds up and we are better and bigger, so the boundaries of the industry are expanding,” he concluded. “But those who created the industry platform should work hard to push ethics and be exemplary to set a new standard so that people know the way forward.”
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