Meet the Faculty Members Of The May 2023 Inside Nollywood Fellowship
Kunle Adebajo, Xavier Ighorodje, Muhammed Akinyemi, Chukwu Martin, Zubaida Baba-Ibrahim and Fiyin Gambo join the faculty for the May 2023 cohort.
The triumphs of the first Inside Nollywood’s fellows confirmed to us the importance of this initiative. We have seen our fellows excellently cover the industry and actively improve conversations about Nollywood within and outside the country's shores. And it is pertinent that those who contribute to such conversations better understand how the systems work from within, so we are extending our faculty to include filmmakers.
Xavier Ighorodje (screenwriter) and Fiyin Gambo (director) will join as guest facilitators. They will take this year’s fellows inside Nollywood, tutoring them about the system as they have experienced it; providing insights and nuances which will help our fellows understand and appreciate the work that goes into making a film.
We are also expanding the scope of journalism training to include Interactive Media, Solutions Journalism, Investigative Journalism and Community Building which will be taught by new faculty members, Muhammed Akinyemi, Zubaida Baba-Ibrahim, Kunle Adebajo and Chukwu Martin respectively.
Precious Nwogu-Aboh returns as Faculty’s head and will be joined by Inside Nollywood’s co-founders Anita Eboigbe and Daniel Okechukwu. You can meet the rest of the faculty below.
Meet the Facilitators
Precious Nwogu-Aboh (Faculty Head)
Precious Nwogu is a film journalist with nearly a decade of experience reporting on the Nollywood film industry and spearheading tough conversations about the film space. She writes under the pseudonym Mamazeus.
Anita Eboigbe (Co-founder, Inside Nollywood)
Anita is a communications expert, researcher and data journalist. In the last five years, she has been actively committed to growing the media and film industries through research for development. Her works, including articles, analysis and consultancy are focused on improving the industry by creating workable roadmaps.
Daniel Okechukwu (Co-Founder, Inside Nollywood)
Daniel is a film journalist whose writing has appeared on OkayAfrica, Africa is a Country and Strangers Guide. He is also co-founder of the analytical film media company, Inside Nollywood.
Jerry Chiemeke is a writer, editor and film critic. His works have appeared in The Africa Report, The Republic, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Africine, Netng, Bellanaija and The Lagos Review, among others. In 2021 and 2022, Chiemeke covered the Blackstar International Film Festival in Philadelphia as a film journalist. He is an alumnus of the Talents Durban initiative.
Iroko Critic are Nollywood enthusiasts committed to fostering conversation about and spurring enthusiasm for the film industry. Since 2020, Iroko Critic has reviewed and produced a ton of Nollywood with a majority getting recognised in and out of the Nollywood community by filmmakers and audience members alike.
Alongside creating Nollywood content, they host ‘Nollywood Film Club’, a live weekly show where a Nollywood film is discussed with an interactive audience often consisting of first-time viewers and film enthusiasts.
Damilare is the Director of Content at Shock NG, one of Nollywood’s leading media platforms.
An indisputable digital media nerd, Damilare is constantly looking for a framework to make niche content ideas profitable.
‘Kunle Adebajo heads investigations at HumAngle, a media establishment covering Africa's conflict and development trends. He has documented the Boko Haram crisis and its humanitarian fallout for several years. He also writes about disinformation, the environment, human rights, and a broad range of topics. He was a fellow of Africa Check and Dubawa and is an alumnus of the British Council’s Future News Worldwide programme.
He has won several journalism awards, including the 2021 Wole Soyinka Award for Investigative Journalism, the Africa Fact-checking and PwC Media Excellence awards in 2022, and more recently the Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling. He is passionate about innovative journalism and how it can help not only to bring attention to critical issues but also lead to lasting reforms.
Muhammed Akinyemi is a journalist, creative writer and editor. He explores storytelling using innovative tools like satellite imagery, interactive data, and multimedia to tell stories that are accessible to all people. He is a 2019 African Liberty Writing Fellow, and an APLP graduate from NTA, Egypt. He works as Editor-in-Chief of Zikoko Citizen.
Zubaida Baba-Ibrahim
Zubaida Baba Ibrahim is a journalist and a creative writer with unique expertise on solutions journalism. She has experience in broadcasting and online print, and is passionate about training early career journalists how to investigate and discuss responses to systematic and social problems in every sector and through any medium.
Zubaida is one of the 2023 participants of the Report Women! Female Reporters Leadership Program Fellowship.
'Chukwu Martin is a director, producer, actor and voice actor with credits spanning film, television and theatre. He is the Founder of Film Rats Club, which serves to empower independent filmmakers to find education, network and develop their craft and also help film consumers to attain optimal marginal utility by developing a better palette in films. The Film Rats Club is also the convener of the The Annual Film Mischief Festival and Yara, an empowerment platform for indie filmmakers.
'Chukwu Martin is the curator of The Junkyard, Ibadan; an exhibition hub for creatives. His Rough Play is a film style & movement that depends heavily on improvisation and encourages young filmmakers to tell stories with the minimal resources available to them..
Ikeade Oriade is the founder and Managing Editor of What Kept Me Up. As a critic, he seeks to constantly assess the nature of film, society and culture. As a daily student of film, he hopes to watch everything cinema has made available at some point.
Guest Faculty
Xavier Ighorodje is a Nigerian Screenwriter, Director, Content Creator, and Producer better known for some of the best local TV shows currently airing in the country, such as Africa Magic’s Hush, Covenant, Jemeji, Unbroken, Enakhe, and Ajoche. He also worked on Netflix’s Shanty Town.
An avid screen lover, Xavier lives and breathes screenwriting, as evident from the posts he makes via his social media handles and his long-standing relationship with M-net Africa.
Fiyin Gambo prides himself as a dynamic storyteller with a passion for telling film and brand stories. He made the impressive The Blood Covenant, a cautionary tale of greed that throwbacks to Old Nollywood but is told with a modern mind. His works are streaming on Prime Video, Showmax and Netflix.