Actor Tayo Faniran has said success in Nollywood rests on more than talent, alleging heavy rigging in the Nigerian film industry in a TVC interview reported on 30 September.
Speaking on TVC’s eSplash, Faniran said the producers the public see as the biggest names in Nollywood were not necessarily the most gifted. “If Nollywood were strictly about talent, I should be far beyond where I am,” he said. He also argued that the industry’s internal politics were worse than what Nigerians experience in government.
Faniran did not name any producer, company or project, and he gave no specific examples to support his claims.
His remarks carry a personal edge. Born in Oyo State, Faniran became known across Africa in 2014, when he finished as runner-up to Tanzania’s Idris Sultan on Big Brother Africa. That fame faded quickly. He had been living in South Africa since 2008, and he later described himself as having all but vanished from the screen for close to a decade.
His career revived in 2023, when filmmaker Jade Osiberu cast him as Ninalowo, a gang leader from Lagos Island, in the crime drama Gangs of Lagos. At the time, he called the role a second chance that few people get.
It is not the first time he has said an outcome was stacked against him. In 2021, in social media posts he later deleted, he suggested that the 2014 Big Brother Africa result had been rigged and accused the show’s organisers of fraud.
Faniran has kept working in Nigerian film since his return. Earlier this year he spoke about filming romantic scenes with Iyabo Ojo in the movie Labake Olododo.
