Award-winning filmmaker Kunle Afolayan has said he has poured more than N8 billion of his own money into KAP Film Village in Oyo State, yet still runs the place on diesel because there is no public power and little federal support.
Speaking on Nidacity’s The Builders podcast, the Aníkúlápó director said the village has never had electricity from the grid.
“I believe in this country so much. We haven’t had light in KAP village since the beginning so we’ve been running on diesel. I made a post few months ago talking about how we can’t sustain that. We were going to close the resort but there’s another friend who told me he’d sell diesel to me on credit, but then, it’s still not sustainable,” he said.
He said the team is now chasing green energy and talking to government.
“So right now, we’re talking to a lot of people to see how we can do green energy. We did one last year which cost about 200 million, but it’s still not enough to power the entire thing. We’re also trying to reach out to the government.”
Then came the line that lit up social media.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever put this out there, but I’ve spent over ₦8 billion of my own money building a film village, yet I get no government support. I know some people who aren’t doing a quarter of what I’m doing who get a lot more support than I do from the government in terms of grants.”
Afolayan tied the project to a practical problem on the Aníkúlápó set. Cast and crew had no proper lodging and were staying in other people’s houses, so he built about 100 rooms. Independent interviews this year describe KAP as a large site in Igbojaye, Itesiwaju Local Government Area of Oyo State, with accommodation, production sets and training programmes. Some reports put the land at about 60 acres.
Power has been the running wound. In March 2026 he said KAP was spending about N11 million on diesel every four to five weeks even after installing solar, and that diesel was sometimes bought on credit. The new podcast comments match that earlier cry. He said the N200 million solar project from last year still cannot carry the whole village.
Oyo State has not been completely absent. Governor Seyi Makinde’s government approved reconstruction of the road leading to the village and has partnered with KAP Academy on training, including a residency that graduated 165 young filmmakers. Federal figures also attended the village’s official opening in 2025.
KAP has hosted Netflix-backed productions and is billed as both a film base and a resort. Afolayan has argued for years that the site is meant to grow the local economy, not only his own movies. The latest interview frames that ambition against a hard bill of having no light since day one, solar that is still too small, and an N8 billion personal outlay he says the government has not matched.