With ace thespian, Funke Akindele’s latest blockbuster Nollywood movie, ‘A Tribe called Judah’ setting outstanding records as the fastest to gross N1 billion at the box office, the highest grossing Nigerian film of all time and highest Nollywood Director of all time, since its release on December 15, 2023, according to the Nigerian Box Office we are most delighted and full of commendations for her brilliant effort.

For us, it is indeed, all welldeserved, coming at a perilous period of harsh economic realities on ground and against the backdrop of little or no support from the public sector. Interestingly, in some uncanny and unprecedented historical achievements in Nigeria’s film industry, Akindele’s two other films: ‘Battle on Buka Street’ and ‘Omo Ghetto: The Saga’ have so far grossed N668.4 million and N636.1 million at the box office, ranking second and third respectively. All these go to explain the swirls of accolades trailing her feats, including of course, that from President Bola Tinubu. According to the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ajuri Ngelale, the president has congratulated Ms. Akindele for her record-setting film and for her contribution to the growth of the industry. Furthermore, he extols the Nigerian creative industry, acknowledging its pivotal role, “not only as a medium for artistic expression but also as a source of enormous soft power and viable export”. Similarly, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Film House Group, Kene Okwuosa has showered praises on her for such a “remarkable achievement”. He is excited that Nigeria’s local content continues to grow, engaging audiences on a grand scale. But that reminds us of the promise made by the president, for his government to provide an enabling environment for the industry to thrive. Not only has it become an imperative, but much more needs to be done than said by the policy makers and those who implement them. That brings us to a brief review of the historical perspective of Nollywood; the main players and the lessons for us, including the government to learn from Akindele’s recent mind-blowing achievements.

In retrospect, the colonial film makers came up with their films in the 1920s using mobile cinemas for exhibition. Subsequently, the earliest feature film, ‘Palaver’ was made in 1926 by Geoffrey Barkas. But fast forwarding to the 1960s and indigenous film makers such as Ola Balogun, Hubert Ogunde, Jab Adu, Moses Olaiya, Eddie Ugboma and Adeyemi Afolayan (aka Ade Love) blazed the trail with Nigerianmade movies. All these provided the inspiration for the younger generation to take film making to a higher level, which eventually brought Nollywood movies to a global perspective, right from the ’80s and the ’90s. The general perspective has spanned the Colonial era, the Golden Age era, Video Film era before the New Nigerian film era as championed by Ben BruceMurray’s Silverbird Cinema houses. Over the years, Nollywood became more popular with the release of ‘Living in Bondage’ cowritten by Okechukwu Ogunjiofor and Kenneth Nnebue, the producer. That was in 1992. Its impact was phenomenal. Subsequently, the likes of Kunle Afolayan came up with fantastic films such as ‘The Figurine’, ‘October 1’, Tunde Kelani, producing ‘O le ku’ and over 50 others. Then came the iconic Kemi Adetiba with blockbusters such as ‘The Wedding Party’ and ‘King of Boys’. Also of significance is Toyin Abraham, popular with films such as ‘Alakada’, ‘ Ijakumo’ and the new one, ‘Malaika’. There is the ace comedian/ film producer, Ayo Makun (AY) with his ‘Guinness Book’ record-setting, ’30 Days in Atlanta’ before coming up ‘Merry Men’. But with Akindele’s three big movies placing her head and shoulders above her peers, the question is what lessons are there to glean from her record-setting exploits? The first of course, is to be able to identify one’s talents, attributes and skills, strongly believe in them and connect with the right people, who would assist to polish such in-built treasures to make them shine forth, for the world to see. It is worthy of note that Akindele, who later became popular with her ‘Jennifer’s Diary’, was rejected by not a few producers who felt that she did not possess the alluring features of a beauty queen; to act and get their films sold. But as to this day, such Nollywood movie makers would be grating their teeth in utter regret for placing outer features above the inner resources.

From her current outstanding achievements, the federal and state governments should understand that the Nollywood practitioners, who produce well over 2,000 movies in a year, create over 200,000 jobs and rake in over $12 billion annual revenue can do much better, especially with their full support. We would recall that the former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke came up with Tinapa Film Studio, which became the original site for the award-winning Ebony Life television station shows but the facilities for film production have not been sustained by Duke’s successors due to policy flip-flops. That is a clarion call to the Governor Sanwo-Olu-led Lagos State Government, to ensure that promises made with regards to the highly commendable Epe-based $100 million African Film City, are kept to the letters. Located at the scenic and serene, prime waterfront and to be equipped with a threestar hotel, banquet hall and ultramodern studios. Other states and the Federal Government should learn from the initiatives of both Cross River and Lagos states. Going further, the provision of the enabling environment for film making to succeed must include security, good access roads, potable water supply, operational and training facilities, as well as access to government grants to assist the film makers. With such assurance and the enabling laws to sustain the projects, irrespective of the political parties in power Nollywood would produce more of the Funke Akindeles for us to be proud of and project to the global stage.

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