Ejiro, Odugbemi, Imasuen, Ọmọefe, Eboh speak on Nollywood’s missing children

‘* If we don’t grow that segment, we surrender influence over children to foreign content ecosystems’

By Godwin Okondo

FOR an industry celebrated as one of the most prolific film hubs in the world, Nollywood is confronting a quiet but deeply consequential omission — the absence of children at the centre of its storytelling. From concerns about cultural identity to structural, financial, and systemic barriers, leading filmmakers including Zeb Ejiro, Femi Odugbemi, Lancelot Imasuen, Kingsley Ọmọefe, and Dozie Eboh say the industry is failing a critical audience — its young segment and critical audience.

At the heart of the conversation is a growing concern, highlighted by the Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB), that children are largely absent not just as viewers, but as protagonists in Nigerian films.

Ejiro, a veteran filmmaker, does not hide his frustration. For years, he says, he has pushed for children-centred storytelling, yet the industry has consistently turned its back on such efforts.

“This is a very important topic… I’ve been fighting this issue for so many years,” he said, noting that the biggest obstacle is funding. Sponsors, he explained, are largely uninterested in children’s content, preferring productions targeted at adults and teenagers who are perceived to have stronger purchasing power. For corporate sponsors therefore, economic power is a stronger pull than the cultural or moral engineering of youngsters.

“When you make a movie for children, you don’t get sponsors,” Ejiro says, lamenting his long struggle to secure backing for a children’s television series designed to inspire and shape young minds. The result, he argues, is a generation of Nigerian children disconnected from their own cultural environment that child-centred narratives engender.

“Cartoon Network is not enough. We need programmes for children who are cut off totally from the local filmic sensibility,” he argues.

He also criticises government institutions for failing to prioritise children’s programming, noting that ministries routinely claim a lack of funds when it comes to films for children.

“Everybody tells you they don’t have money… ministries, TV stations, even multinationals,” he notes. “And if a producer uses personal funds, how do they recover their money?”

While Ejiro frames the issue as a funding crisis, Odugbemi situates it within a broader structural and cultural context. “The observation by the censors board is important because it invites the industry to reflect not just on volume, but on responsibility,” he said.

He explains that working with children in film requires specialised systems — from trained child actors and tutors to welfare structures, psychological safeguards, and legal protections — all of which are still underdeveloped in Nollywood.

One of Nollywood’s few child-centred movies on YouTube

“Child performance is a very specialised craft,” he notes. “You need emotional and psychological experts, education continuity systems, and strong parental supervision.”

These requirements significantly increase production costs, making such projects less attractive to investors, who tend to favour commercially safer, adult-oriented genres.

Beyond logistics, Odugbemi warns of a deeper cultural consequence, when he says, “If we don’t grow that segment, we surrender influence over children to foreign content ecosystems,” he states.

He points to a familiar reality — Nigerian children adopting foreign accents and cultural references from international media. “That’s because they’ve grown up watching foreign content… being taught logic and thinking through it,” he argues.

For him, the issue goes beyond entertainment to identity formation. “How do we create heroes with a Nigerian identity? How do we pass down history, language, values? If we don’t tell our stories, someone else will.”

Imasuen offers a more blunt assessment, attributing the imbalance largely to profit-driven filmmaking and systemic failure.

“Nollywood movies are purely driven by the desire to make profit,” he argues. “The children are not thought about,” noting that audience preferences — shaped heavily by foreign films — further complicate the situation, as younger viewers are already conditioned to favour international content.

“The way we are as a people — if it’s not foreign, it doesn’t interest us,” he says. Still, he insists the market exists but remains underdeveloped due to lack of investment and long-term vision.

Acccording to him, “We as producers and filmmakers are also very lazy people. Everybody wants the easy way out.”

Despite these challenges, Imasuen highlights initiatives such as the student film festivals he organises and aimed at nurturing young storytellers and giving children the opportunity to tell their own stories. “The idea is to catch them young… let them tell their own stories,” he says.

Yet even these efforts struggle with the same recurring obstacle — funding, he says, noting, “Getting sponsorship… is always a problem. The system doesn’t play a good role in encouraging it.”

For Ọmọefe, the issue is not total absence of children in nollywood films, but limited representation shaped by practical constraints. “There are films in this category, just that they’re few,” he says.

He points to logistical challenges, particularly the difficulty of working around children’s school schedules. “Children are in school and it won’t be easy asking someone’s child not to go to school because of a film shoot,” he explains, noting that productions often have to wait for holiday periods.

Like others, he identifies financing as a major barrier, stressing that children’s films are rarely seen as commercially viable. “Making films for this category is usually not a commercial project,” he argues, drawing comparisons with international models where governments and institutions fund children’s programming.

“If we want to correct it, the government and organisations have to step in with funding,” he adds, citing examples like Sesame Street, which benefits from institutional backing.

Eboh, however, offers a slightly different perspective, pushing back against the notion that children and teenage content is entirely absent. “I have a teenage movie series showing on my YouTube channel… so it’s wrong to say we don’t have teenage movies in Nollywood,” he states.

He notes a growing presence of youth-focused stories on digital platforms and television, particularly compared to a decade ago, adding, “On YouTube… there is now a rise in secondary school storyline movies.”

Still, Eboh acknowledges that more needs to be done, especially given the concerns raised by the regulator. “Coming from the censors board means we have to do more,” he admits.

For him, the solution begins at the grassroots. “Dramatic societies should be encouraged in primary and secondary schools to enable us discover young talents,” he says. “It’s not always easy to discover kid actors unlike adults.”

Across the spectrum of opinions, a clear consensus emerges: Nollywood’s neglect of children’s storytelling is not due to a lack of awareness, but a convergence of financial constraints, structural gaps, weak institutional support, and shifting audience preferences. Yet beyond the industry’s internal challenges lies a larger question — one of cultural responsibility.

If stories shape identity, values, and imagination, then the absence of children in Nollywood’s narrative landscape may carry consequences far beyond the screen. As Odugbemi rightly warns, the risk is not just creative imbalance, but cultural displacement. And until deliberate investment, policy direction and industry commitment converge, Nigeria’s youngest audience may continue to grow up watching — and becoming — stories that are not their own.