How Some Nollywood Producers Are Destroying The Image Of Ìgbò Culture And History – Biko Kwụsịnụ Ya

Nollywood producers, directors, executive producers, and actors, in an attempt to always have fresh content and make quick money, sell lies and unnecessary fiction about Ìgbò culture and history.

To be specific, the Ìgbò among them, have continued to bastardize our history and culture with their "Kingdom" and "The Gods are angry" monotonous motion pictures.

Number one on this list is the negative and false portrayal of Ọdịnanị Ìgbò (as a form of spirituality, and organized religion). All they show the passionate viewers is a supposed native doctor tying red cloths, marking his eyes with nzu, and portraying the gods and deities of ani Ìgbò as bloodsucking entities, whose only concern is human sacrifice.

These producers do not care to learn or show the true, real and basic tenets of Ọdịnanị Ìgbò, such as: Chi, Agwu, Ndi ichie, Akwali omumu/Oda Omumu, Ogwugwu, Anyanwu, Agbala, Nso ani, Ikpu alu, and many more. These aspects of our spirituality as Ndi Ìgbò are not infused into many movies about Ìgbò culture, religion, and worldview, leaving the viewers to go away with false narratives that hurt us in the long run.

There is no real portrayal of who a complete Ìgbò DIBỊA is, showcasing the real way we practice our spirituality and connect to the divine. This, in the long run, paints our spirituality as dark, and our DIBỊAs as men and women connected to human-bloodsucking deities and forces of nature; now outsiders and the unconscious ones amongst us are left with the notion that we practice a backward, diabolic and evil religion, which should be feared.

Number two on the list is the constant need to have movies about blood money and rituals. They are neck-deep in the narrative that a man must have to sacrifice his mother, child, wife (or any other human being) for him to be financially successful. There are too many of these kinds of movies out there, and it now makes it seem as if there is no wealthy Ìgbò man in a society whose hands are not soiled in blood money, or rituals. And this is wrong because Ndi Ìgbò are some of the most hardworking people you can find in the entire world. Ndi Ìgbò are hardworking and have attained success through hard work, in the formal and informal sectors of life. We have men and women who have succeeded through years and years of learning, implementation, and hard work.

We have billionaires, and millionaires, who have attained great heights, without soiling their hands. They are too numerous to mention.

Through the Ìgbò apprenticeship system, Igba boy/Imu ahia, we have seen young boys from poor backgrounds, taking to their master’s house, and after 5-8 years of servitude and learning, get settled, start their own business, and after a few years of toiling, saving and investing, become successful millionaires. There are hundreds of thousands of such stories scattered all over ani Ìgbò. And then after years of hard work, and such men are blessed in business, society now paints them as ritualists. Why? Because that is the common notion that has been planted subconsciously by a good number of Nollywood movies.

This is unfair to the hardworking Ìgbò man and woman.