Pete Edochie, another British film actor who came after Yoruba film, Lere Paimo rejected claims of seniority

Veteran Yoruba actor Lere Paimo has stated that Yoruba actors and films existed in Nigeria long before Pete Edochie and other British film actors emerged.

He stated this in reaction to the debate about who started Nollywood, insisting that Yoruba theater existed before the English language productions often attributed to Igbo actors such as Edochie, who recently claimed, that he started acting before any other Nigerian actor alive today.

Speaking in a YouTube interview with Kunle Afod, 86-year-old Paimo said he started acting in 1958, four years before Edochie said his career began in 1962 at the age of 15.

The conversation began after Edochie challenged his colleagues to prove whether anyone had started acting before him, citing his 1962 role in William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

Paimo disagrees, tracing Nollywood’s roots to the Yoruba traveling theater tradition.

“I started acting in 1958. I met Hubert Ogunde, who was my senior and others, and there were a lot of big films being produced at that time,” he said.

He argues that indigenous Yoruba productions were mainstream, long before English films became popular.

“I heard from history that when he (Hubert Ogunde) started his career in the 40s, there was no one before him, and we never hear from history that the British industry, or any films made in English, started before him.

“Since we don’t hear or read about it in any books or historical documentation, I believe it was the Yoruba industry that started it first.

“At that time there was no production of English-language films; Ogunde started by producing films in Yoruba, which he used to educate everyone who watched the films at that time. We had never heard of English-language films until now, when, with civilization, we began to hear and see that there were English-language films,” he said.

Paimo also discusses claims about other early theater figures.

“I don’t know if Baba Olumegbon started before Ogunde, but what I know is that Ogunde is the person I know who first started acting. Even though I have heard about him for a long time, I can’t say he is senior to Ogunde,” Paimo said.

Paimo started with the Oyin Adejobi Theater Group and then joined the Duro Ladipo group, where he played Chief Basa in Obamoro.

He later became famous in Yoruba cinema, especially for his role as Soun Ogunola in Ogbori Elemosho.