My Mother Understood That Loving Olu Jacobs Was More Important Than Our Age-Gap – Joke Silva

Veteran Nollywood actress Joke Silva has come out to share how her parents reacted when she presented him for marriage in 1984.

She recently had her say while speaking on a recent episode of real estate magnate Dr. Stephen Akintayo’s Leadership podcast, and fans have been reacting.

According to her, the fact that Olu was older than her with almost 20-years age was a very big deal for her father, but luckily for her, her mother didn’t have any issue with it.

Joke added that the fact that her mother’s parents also got married with a wide age-gap made it easy for her to understand that true love conquers all.

Her words, “I was in love with him. As simple as that. And he was such a very gorgeous person.

I remember one of my sisters telling me in 1984 when I came to Nigeria with him [Olu Jacobs] and they met, she called me aside and said, ‘Joke, this is the man to take to daddy.’

Initially, my dad had issues with the fact that he [Olu Jacobs] was older but my mum was like, well, this is the person they know me with, and then her parents had that kind of age gap as well. So, she agreed for us to get married.”

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.