Nigerian comedian and filmmaker, Basketmouth has accused Nollywood producers of mismanaging funds allocated by global streaming platforms, claiming that their actions have negatively impacted the quality of Nigerian films.
Speaking in a recent interview on Arise TV, the entertainer alleged that many producers misuse substantial portions of the budgets provided for movie production, diverting the funds for personal gain.
According to him, only a small fraction of the funds is utilized for actual filmmaking.
“When the streaming platforms came in, they gave money to these producers, and I’ll tell you point blank: these producers would take the money—$1.5 million or whatever they give them—and use about 10% of that money to make the movie,” he said.
Basketmouth further claimed that streaming platforms, upon discovering these alleged malpractices, decided to pay actors directly to ensure transparency.
However, producers reportedly devised a way to continue the fraudulent activity by coercing actors into returning part of their pay.
“Even to the point where the streaming platforms stepped in and said, ‘You know what? We are going to be paying the actors directly,’ these guys would still go behind and tell the actors to pay half of that money back to them. You can verify the information anywhere,” he added.
The filmmaker argued that the mismanagement of funds has significantly affected the quality of Nollywood films, with some epic productions appearing substandard.
“So, when you do that and expect your movie to be 100%, it can’t. It’s impossible. But these guys? They’ll cut, buy houses, buy cars. And that’s why when you see our movies, some of our epic movies look like stage plays,” Basketmouth lamented.