How Nora Awolowo Made Nollywood History

With a surname etched in Nigeria’s national history, Nora Awolowo strategically charts her own path to continue a legacy of excellence, becoming the youngest person to gross over ₦100 million in Nollywood with ‘Red Circle’.

The parlour’s transformation into a makeshift kitchen, with a water boiler and a small stove to reheat the week’s soup, remains a fond memory for a little girl whose aunt could not miss her TV shows and utilized a simple meal plan of eba and soup, so she could always be in the sitting room when she needed to be. Usually, many recalled eating one meal constantly for the lack of dietary options, but in Nora Awolowo’s case, it was out of necessity to not miss the delightful viewing of golden-age Nigerian programming.  

Nigerian television in the 1990s and 2000s was curated for families, with special programmes like the riveting Binta and Friends, the strategic Gulder Ultimate Search, the melodious Star Quest, the thought-provoking Who Wants to be a Millionaire and the beloved classic Superstory, an all-time favourite that aired on Thursdays at 8 p.m. and was considered the glory of local television production under its executive producer, Wale Adenuga. Alongside these were shows like the cool KKB Show, which featured Afrobeats star Teni the Entertainer as a child actor, among many others that formed the staple viewing of the average urban child. Reminiscing on her family’s attachment to television shows, Awolowo told me that: 

It looked like there was timetable for shows that you needed to watch. I remember one of my aunts, she was staying with us and the kitchen was faraway. So instead of her to cook in the kitchen, she would—because she doesn’t want to miss the show she was watching—always make eba. As a child, it is just like your evening routine was eba from Monday to Friday, except your parents are in the house, [then you can switch] maybe to, rice or something else. And it is not like you can’t afford to eat those foods; it is just the circumstance of the person that you are living with not wanting to compromise for what they are watching.

Children and adults were hooked as these programmes fit into the Nigerian psyche of edutainment: content and morals. They were supplemented with trips to the video club, lending video cassettes for cheap and returning them within an agreed time frame. Often, these tapes were borrowed and lent to neighbours, while one family would watch them concurrently to avoid late fees at the video club. 

At the time, Nigeria was also experiencing a change in cinema culture, led by venues like Silverbird Cinema, which opened in the then-luxurious Silverbird Galleria in Victoria Island, Lagos. The Yoruba film industry, meanwhile, was a force of its own, making its mark in households—particularly Awolowo’s. She recalls that the horror-filled sequences and agitating pictures were undeniably entertaining. This hard-to-beat arsenal of community-based visual artistry would later propel Awolowo’s venture into the film industry, as she made mental notes on how best to entertain while capturing reality.  

Shuffling dutifully to assembly lines and classes were the norm for all but one pupil at one of Awolowo’s schools, Dee Unique. A schoolmate, an actress who had appeared in screen veteran Tunde Kelani’s Saworoide (1999), was treated very differently by teachers. Classes were not mandatory for her, and schoolwork was eased in; she was given special treatment. ‘Because she was never around every other day, like the way students [should be], but nobody was really bothered.’ The way teachers would say, ‘oh, you have not come to class, just skip class.’ For Awolowo, this was her first experience with the idea of ‘celebrity’. The videos she loved were not just ends in themselves but translated into real-life relationships and interactions...