Popular Nollywood actress, Bimbo Akintola has come out to say that she is a humanist, not a feminist.

She recently had her say via her social media page, and Nigerians have been reacting.

According to her, even if her passion for the girl-child and the women is intense, it doesn’t make her feminist because she’ll never like the idea.

Bimbo added that she thinks there’s a focus on this wing of feminism that is very extreme, and that should be discouraged.

Her words, “My passion for the girl-child and the women does not make me a feminist; I am a humanist.”

“I don’t like this feminist idea because I think there’s a focus on this wing of feminism that is extreme. It’s toxic. I don’t want to be part of that. I want us to realise that you care about humans if you say you are a humanist.”

“That means every individual: boy, girl, woman, man; everybody. My niche is the women and the girl child because there is so much to do concerning this issue in Nigeria.”

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.