My Children Received Death Threats During #EndSARS – Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde

Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde and Mathew Ekeinde

Veteran Nollywood actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde has said that her children received death threats during the 2020 #EndSARS protests. She recently had her say while appearing as a guest on Rubbin’ Minds on Channels Television, and fans have been reacting.

According to her, the period was the most intense backlash she has faced in years of advocacy, and the sad development forced her to rethink how she engages in activism.

Omotola added that while she is used to getting death threats, she will always worry for her children.

Her words, “I am used to death threats; I have received them many times. But I have never seen anything like what happened during #EndSARS. It was intense.

My kids started getting death threats. That was when it became weird.

I was on the streets during #EndSARS. I was doing international advocacy. I spoke with CNN, engaged with international NGOs and embassies, and I was doing a lot of work.

When people started coming physically to my home and place of work to look for me, I knew I had to worry about other people and not just myself.”

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.