Contrary to the popular notion that Nollywood emerged in the 1990s, veteran Nigerian entertainer, Bob Ejike has said that Nollywood started with the commerialisation of his film, Echoes of Wrath which was released in 1982.
In a recent interview with Nigerian media personality, Azuh Arinze, Ejike stated that he founded Nollywood because “he wanted to take film to the people, not to make people come to the cinema.”
He went on to reveal how he brought change to the Nigerian film industry through the emergence of Nollywood.
“I do not claim to be the founder of Nollywood. I didn’t set out to found Nollywood, I set out simply to create something; from which our artistes will benefit from. TV which was run by technicians and engineers in those days had no respect for artistes. They told us our work was useless,” he explained.
“I was more interested in moving our activities directly to the people to avoid the insults we were getting. I wasn’t out there to create Nollywood. People who have doubted my pioneering role have no imagination. They think the Nollywood I created is this great Nollywood. They do not realize that a child is born small and when it grows into a goliath; will you look at the mother and say ‘that can’t be the mother?’.
“There was no video industry at all, it was void when I made the first Nollywood film. And its not a claim, because I won the national award. How can it be a claim when it was on record that I won the award in 1983 for Echoes of Wrath where I made RMD the star of the film.”
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Speaking on why he has not been given credit for founding Nollywood, the singer, actor and teacher stated that only the newbies in the movie industry have failed to give him his due respect.
“People have acknowledged me. The industry respects and references me and off course I don’t expect the same reference I get from Zeb Ejiro to come from this new actors who do not have a sense of history.
“They are not interested in who created Nollywood. They don’t have a sense of hierarchy. But I don’t blame them because we are in a country where history is not studied so it has no relevance. People are always looking for new things.”
Bob Ejike also revealed that he was invited to Uganda, to help set up their movie industry; by replicating Nollywood in the country.
