I Respect The Benin Culture – Femi Branch

Popular Nollywood actor, Femi Branch has come out to react to last weekend’s spat Bobrisky had with Edo state indigenes.

He recently had his say via his social media page, and fans have been reacting.

According to him, the indigenes of Edo state came out to condemn Bobrisky’s comment because they rever their king, but he wonders if such can happen if Bobrisky asked a Yoruba monarch to marry him.

He added that he absolutely respects the Benin culture and how they do not joke with certain institutions.

His words, “A lot of people meet me and say, ‘I don’t really watch Nigerian movies but I watch your own movies’. With due apologies, that is one of the dumbest things people say. Is my own movie a Togolese one? That is one of the reasons I respect Benin culture.”

“Look at what happened recently. Bobrisky made a joke. But, there are some institutions you don’t joke with.”

“Bobrisky could say he is a Yoruba guy (or babe); however ‘she’ wants to be addressed. He must have been seeing how some Yoruba Obas have been behaving in recent times. That must have made him feel he could make such a comment about the revered Oba of Benin. It was when he made that statement he realized the Oba of Benin isn’t just any king.”

“Some people thought the reactions were a bit too much but Benin people don’t joke with their culture. And that is because the Oba of Benin does not ‘carry himself’ anyhow.”

“Our culture and tradition are dying by the minute and people don’t even seem to be concerned. There was an uproar by the indigenes of Benin because they don’t joke with their king and their king also doesn’t joke with their tradition. Do you think if Bobrisky had made such a statement about a Yoruba oba, people would have talked? Let us tell ourselves the truth. Is it normal to see our kings on Instagram frolicking with ‘commoners’?”

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.