Omoni Oboli
There’s a line, very pedestrian and outrightly ridiculous that some of these Nollywood filmmakers use whenever they want to attack critics.
That line is gaining popularity among filmmakers whose works get found out quite often. Those who haven’t realised the truth in the statement that nobody will die if they don’t make films.
It is the line which many of them who don’t know that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing very well fall back on.
Those who use the line have still not come to terms with the reality creeping up on them that it is no longer business as usual in Nollywood. That if you dish out mediocrity, you will be called out regardless of where your boobs have previously turned up.
That line sounds just as ridiculous and mediocre as the works they often whip it out to defend.
That line comes in different versions of ignorance. It is either ‘Have you ever made a film?’ or ‘Go and make your own film let us see.’
Your film gets criticised and the next thing you say in defence is that trash? Seriously? I mean, do these people think at all before they talk or go to their Instagram pages sulking?
The YNaija writeup that caused wahala
The other day, aunty Omoni Oboli, the self-proclaimed first lady of filmmaking in Nigeria …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. (sorry, I needed to take a laughter break), the untouchable one who has multiple theft allegations hanging over her head like the way the aroma of smoked fish perpetually hangs over Makoko, took to Instagram to ‘finish’ a writer for their opinion of her work.
In an attempt to end that writer’s career, she used words that won’t go amiss if used to describe several of the films she was trying to remind us she made. Her attack was ridiculous and petty.
And of course, she used THAT line.
The writer hadn’t made a film. And so fucking what? I have never made pizza but does that mean I cannot tell when I bite into a poorly made one?
Now let me come down to your level and use this simple analogy, Ms Oboli. I want to imagine that you often eat at fancy restaurants.
Imagine settling down to have a meal at one of such restaurants that has been flooding your social media timeliness, telling all about how amazing their food tastes and how they are changing the face of culinary experience and blah blah blah; but after your first mouthful you discover that the meal was undercooked or over spiced.
So you walk to up to the restaurant owner to register your disappointment but he shuts you down saying, ‘Go and make so and so dish first, let’s see.’ You’re going to laugh it over and head home happy, right? Shebi?
That’s similar to how this works. See?
I have never made wine in my house but I sure can tell when I taste a great wine or a bad one. It will be laughable for winemakers to tell me to go and make my wine first before having the right to call them out. Sure, I must know about wines. But I don’t need to have made a bottle.
The earlier you people realise that criticism isn’t personal, the better. Even when you are being criticised as a director, actor or whatever it is you do, you need to know that the criticism is based on your work. Nothing more.
A critic who is worth their salt should know the line and not cross it. And I do not think that writer crossed it.
I laugh my head off when TNS reviews a film and some random fellas say that our review is based on hate or jealously. And I’m like, seriously? Does the filmmaker have the keys to the gates of heaven or world peace or something? So, what is the basis for hate or jealousy?
Olúwa gbà wà!
There’s always a place for critics. And there’s nothing like ‘destructive criticism’. So, First Lady, Omoni Oboli, don’t discount critics just because we haven’t made films.
Some of us may not have made films (it will surprise you to know that some have actually made films) but we know crap when we see it. And while Wives on Strike wasn’t an entire shambles of a film, it wasn’t a great one either. Don’t let box office records or AMVCA nominations delude you.
Cheers!
This is post first appeared on TNS.
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