Whoever writes history must necessarily bend it in their favour. It’s one reality about capturing history and the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill, knew it. He said history would be kind to him because he would write it. He did, and his volumes are among the classics by which we gauge World War 2 in which he played a central role. Maybe if some other knowledgeable persons came out with their own version of events, Churchill’s view wouldn’t have been so dominant. That’s history. The same pattern though obtains in Nigeria where some actors claim that the movie, “Living in Bondage,” made in 1992 was the origin of moviemaking here. This claim is a fraud.
A few years ago when I heard this claim made I commented on it briefly on this page. I stated then that I was surprised 1992 was being mentioned and told to even foreign researchers who came here as the year the first home movie was made in Nigeria. I noted that this was a distortion of history and those in the industry would need to correct it. This matter surfaced again recently when an actor spoke on TV, and later an actress spoke in an interview with The PUNCH newspaper, about the origin of filmmaking here. The actress was asked if Yoruba films were playing catch-up in Nollywood. She said no, that Yoruba films had always been at the forefront of Nollywood, mentioning the works of great Yoruba actors and filmmakers who were in the industry before the 1990s.
Now, anyone may talk about “first film” made in Nigeria in terms of categorising films as Yoruba and English. I don’t, because it’s nonsense and the very idea reeks of bias against what is indigenous. It speaks to some notion of the inferiority of our own languages to the English language if anyone claims the movies made before 1992 were in Yoruba and that Living in Bondage was the first English film. It was, but it wasn’t the first movie. So it’s never the origin of moviemaking here. The Indian film industry began using the Indian language and it remains largely so till today. No one talks about the first English film in India as the origin of filmmaking in India. Indian film industry is Indian film industry. Hollywood started with silent movies and that year remains recognised as its origin. But in Nigeria differentiating between indigenous language and English is what some are doing just to give relevance to their own work.
The first film in Nigeria was shot in 1920 in Plateau State. That was produced by foreigners. But films had begun to be made in the South-West by the early 1980s. No one is talking about this, rather the fraud about 1992 as the origin is being spread. Since I pointed out this fraud here some years ago, it was a few weeks ago that an actor in ‘Living in Bondage’ first mentioned on TV the fact that a Yoruba person was making films nine years before ‘Living in Bondage’ was shot. That time, his narrative was rather dismissive. There was this tokenism he paid to the pioneers of moviemaking in Nigeria so I found his tone rather off-putting. There was that attempt to rubbish others in order to promote a film in which he probably featured. That’s typical African, Nigerian “rubbish them” mentality at work.
We like to distort history. When we’re challenged over this we go on to pay a token acknowledgement to the truth. As I did, some other people must have been pointing to the fact that the 1992 film wasn’t the origin of Nollywood; as such this actor on TV wanted to avoid controversy so he paid a token. But he refused state history as it actually was. I do here, and I’ll continue to. Since peddlers of the ‘1992 fraud’ remain adamant, henceforth any self-centred, ego-driven narrative claiming ‘Living in Bondage’ as the origin of Nollywood won’t just be met with the names of those involved fully called out; they’ll equally be branded as promoters of fraud and advised to cast off ignorance so that they don’t continue to misinform Nigerians. No one should adamantly distort our history and expect Nigerians to be quiet.
When some make unhelpful comments, thereby misinforming Nigerians and I interrogate such by pointing out what they missed, I’m branded as attacking them. But all I do is my job as a journalist and columnist, monitoring what is going on in our public space and defending public interest while making my contribution to public discourse. As one of my editors at The PUNCH once commented, opinion matters, and different opinions matter. If anyone reads doing my job as an attack on them, I advise that they always think the comments they make through before they publicly make such. There’re Nigerians who’ll necessarily point out what they missed.
Meanwhile, what many who make unhelpful public comments fail to consider is that they too, with their divisive and narrow views are attacking Nigeria, attacking the very fabric that holds our society together. They undo frameworks that traditionally sustain a nation. History is one such framework; the history of Nollywood is one of them, and some of us will insist that it be properly told. Without this being done, names will henceforth be called out and there’ll be a forever unending debate, particularly around whichever actor narrates fraudulent history as to who pioneered what and where moviemaking started in Nigeria.
I recall that in the 1980s veteran actors such as Hubert Ogunde and the actor known as Baba Sala were already making films shown in cinema houses. This was inevitable because in Nigeria, the South-West was where acting was first undertaken as a profession, or more realistically, as a semi-profession. Ogunde had been moving with his theatre group from town to town in the 1950s into the 1960s. There were other theatre groups operating from this time into the 1980s. Theatre groups came to my school to stage plays from Yoruba novels that I had read. Ogunde and Baba Sala’s indigenously produced films included “Aiye”, “Orun Mooru”, “Mosebolatan.” From 1982 specifically, Alade Aromire began to make home movies, releasing them on those video tapes that we all knew.
I began to pay close attention to Aromire’s works in the late 1980s when he had a TV programme where he promoted his films. He would appear and say, “I greet you my people. It’s I, your son, brother, and kid brother, Alade Aromire.” It happened that at about this time one of my younger ones, Olanrewaju Ajibade, did some work with this pioneer. Aromire had a long list of home movies, including one titled, “Iwo ni”, if I recall precisely. He was well known across the South-West and his films earned him such success that he went into real estate business. There was no Yoruba person in a city at the time who was old enough to know, and had a TV, that wasn’t aware of this man, or remotely heard of his home movies like many did the works of Hubert Ogunde and Baba Sala. Unfortunately, Aromire died at that stage in the history of filmmaking in Nigeria.
When the actor in ‘Living in Bondage’ that I referred to earlier was talking on TV, he said in passing that a Yoruba man-made films for about nine years but they weren’t successful and ‘Living in Bondage’ was the first successful one. He was referring to Aromire, but take note that he didn’t border to mention the name of this pioneer. That’s how they go when they want to demean others and thereby distort history. Who tells true history by leaving out the names of those who played a part and who thereby made materials available for historians? It’s like leaving Churchill’s name out of World War 2 history.
In any case, I wasn’t sure this actor knew what he was talking about when he said Aromire’s movies weren’t successful. Even then, was that enough reason he and others ignored the hard work of the pioneers only to project ‘Living on Bondage’ as the origin of Nollywood? 1982 was the origin of Nollywood. The fraud called 1992 should henceforth be called exactly that.
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