Chief Ferdinand Ohanekwu and Nkiru Sylvanus have spent decades in Nigeria’s film industry, and they do not see its current state the same way. Speaking separately to the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday, the two veteran actors offered contrasting assessments of where Nollywood stands, one rooted in concern about lost discipline, the other in cautious optimism about expanded access.
Ohanekwu’s criticism was direct in his assessment. He accused a section of emerging actors of entering the industry without studying the foundation laid by pioneering practitioners, describing the result as a generation that believes it is doing something extraordinary while actually undermining the legacies built by those who came before. His language carried the frustration of someone watching standards he helped establish erode in real time. He urged aspiring actors to be patient, resist the pull of trends, and commit to learning from experienced professionals rather than chasing visibility.
Sylvanus offered a more structural read on the same industry. She acknowledged the common perception that Nollywood’s early films were more engaging than much of what is produced today, but argued that the comparison misses the larger transformation underway. The industry, she said, has become a global market accessible to a far wider range of producers and actors than it once was, a democratisation she views as a strength rather than a dilution. Her position was not that quality has not shifted, but that openness and quality are not inherently in conflict, and that Nollywood remains a work in progress with room to improve rather than a tradition in decline.
On her own career, Sylvanus said she remains selective, accepting roles based on script quality rather than volume of work. Once an actor, always an actor, she said, framing her continued presence in the industry as a matter of choice rather than necessity.
Her closing remarks pointed to what she sees as the more pressing structural issue facing Nollywood: distribution. Quality films without effective distribution networks and outlets struggle to reach audiences and generate sustainable returns, she argued, positioning infrastructure rather than talent as the binding constraint on the industry’s next phase of growth.
Between Ohanekwu’s call for discipline and Sylvanus’s case for openness lies a debate that has shadowed Nollywood for years: whether the industry’s growth has come at the cost of craft, or whether craft and growth were never actually in competition. Both veterans agree the industry is unfinished. They disagree sharply on what finishing it requires.
