How Banned Nollywood Stars Bounced Back

It would be recalled that in
the year 2005 several A-list Nollywood actors were banned from all forms of acting and commercial activity in the Nigerian Movie industry. The Actors’ Guild of Nigeria placed a one-year ban on eight actors, Stella Damascus, Nkem Owoh, Pete Edochie, Richard Mofe-Damijo, Genevieve Nnaji, Chinwe Okeke, Ramsey Nouah and Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, for charging too much for movie appearance owing to their popularity and fan base.
In the end, the actors were ‘Vindicated’ as they returned to acting and carried on with their normal work in the industry as though nothing had ever happened. Today, hardly anyone remembers that there was ever a ban on names like Genevieve Nnaji, Ramsey Nouah and Omotola because they all went on to achieve individual success following the ban.
For instance, Omotola went on to make the 2013 Time’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world a list including pioneers, icons, artists and world leaders. Genevieve Nnaji, on her own, has gone on to ink major deals with corporate brands as well as to enjoy positive media reviews both locally and globally from  the Oprah Winfrey show to CNN.
Ramsey Nouah has also enjoyed corporate deals as well as the media spotlight from international platforms. Other than the aforementioned corporate deals, their exploits also spread into Nollywood as they re-launched their acting careers following the “break” with major, best-selling movie appearances. It is clear that they have enjoyed sizeable recognition and successes in their careers regardless to being deemed too “pricey” by Nollywood marketers and the Nigerian Actors’ Guild.
But each of them was and is armed with a distinguished understanding of acting and all the dynamics of 21st century theatre and media maneuverings. Even if these three were not totally distinguished, Joke Silva was. And yes, she was also a part of the banned Nollywood A-list actors in 2005, only her name was not announced, probably owing to respect for her status.
In sum, if these Nigerian movie stars did not have a rich catalogue of movies that they acted in or produced, if they did not have the requisite acting skills, if the media was not favourably disposed to them and their every move and if corporate brands did not consider them worthy of several endorsement deals, then it would have been a different story altogether today.
The truth is, however bright one’s career gets, there is only so much buzz it can garner if there is no substance behind it or enough work from the artists in question. Otherwise, no sooner has the buzz faded than the truth will come to the fore, and at this point reality sets in faster than the speed of light, and the world realises that it was all a charade, that the prior buzz was nothing  but a flash in the pan.