Veteran Nollywood actor Francis Duru has sparked a fresh industry debate after accusing Igbo filmmakers and investors of abandoning their own stories while Yoruba producers tighten their grip on cinemas and major streaming platforms.
The actor made the remarks during an interview on Gbam, aired on the Yan Content Factory YouTube channel on Friday. Duru said Yoruba stakeholders organised, invested, and protected their culture at a time Igbo players failed to do the same.
“When they say charity begins at home, that’s what has happened to the Yorubas. We need to learn from them. If you don’t protect your own, if you don’t project your own, you know, who will do it?” he said.
He went further, calling the current imbalance shameful for an industry Igbo pioneers helped build.
“We created an industry. It’s so shameful. Go to Netflix today; you hardly see one Igbo film that speaks of the Igbo heritage. It’s annoying.”
Duru argued that Yoruba creators spotted a new market and moved as a bloc.
“The Yorubas created an opportunity for themselves and utilised it very well for themselves. So why were you not learning? Why didn’t you see it? Because of that same concept: you think you are the big man, but you forget that there will come a time when you need to be expansive, proactive and ask yourself, ‘There is a new market space. Why am I not there?’” he said.
He urged Igbo stakeholders not to turn the conversation into ethnic bitterness.
“The Yorubas perfected themselves. Got together, called their people who were able to spend money and all that stuff. So the Yoruba-centric nature protected their own. Don’t get angry with them. These are people who saw their own and protected their own. What happened to you?”
The actor also lamented the absence of big-screen epics about Igbo historical figures. He said Igbo writers now write for Yoruba productions, while some Yoruba filmmakers tell Igbo stories in ways he found damaging.
“We have how many great men in Nigeria? When was the last time you saw the epic of one of these great men? We have great writers who are even writing for the Yorubas. We see the Yorubas crossing over to write Igbo stories, like Ahamefuna, and made a mess of who we are.”
Duru traced part of the problem to the early video era. In his view, some pioneering marketers treated films like merchandise rather than culture.
“They were just merchandising. Not passion. They just wanted to make money. They were busy about the power, authority and money they were making to the point that they didn’t know that they were losing it. That’s why they left; that’s why they lost out. Where are they now? Those names don’t make any sense.”
He contrasted that rush with the discipline of classic Nollywood.
“That hallmark of nostalgia is because it was content, passion, and people sat down and thought through every moment, even from audition to rehearsal to casting. It was very procedural. But today it is all step and jump, today script, tomorrow go and sell.”
According to Duru, too many people now enter filmmaking without respecting the craft.
“There’s an influx of so many people, ‘everybody can do it.’ People no longer respect the ethics and principles that guide everything you do in life. We don’t have an idea of the necessary principles that built our success; once you cannot define it, then you’re progressing in error, and you cannot pass that knowledge to another person.”
He stopped short of dismissing new digital creators. The industry is growing, he said, but veterans must set the standard again.
“Everything is adding up, and we’re getting better and bigger, so it is expanding the frontiers of the industry. But those who created the platform of the industry should work hard to actually push towards the ethics and be exemplary to set a new standard so people can know the way to go.”
The comments add heat to a long-running debate about language, ownership, and power in Nollywood. Yoruba-language titles and Yoruba-led productions have remained highly visible in cinemas and on global platforms in recent years, while questions about the scarcity of Igbo-heritage films on those same platforms continue to divide filmmakers and fans.