AGN Never Invited Me To Clear My Name – Halima Abubakar

Nollywood actress, Halima Abubakar has come out to file a lawsuit against the National President of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Emeka Rollas, seeking N30 billion in damages.

She filed the lawsuit after the AGN announced her indefinite suspension from the guild last week, and fans have been reacting.

According to her, she can only express shock at the false accusations levelled against her by the AGN, and she was never even invited by the Guild to clear her name before seeing news of her suspension circulating on social media.

She added that the AGN President is deliberately tarnishing her reputation, and the false narrative is intended to cast aspersions on her and stir up social criticism.

Her lawyers said, “Our client has been battling health issues for years, and despite maintaining a professional relationship, you chose this delicate moment during her recovery to spread a negative and false narrative. This has caused her emotional and psychological distress and harmed her reputation among right-thinking members of society.”

WOW.

Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.

The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.

Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.

Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.