Olaide Olabanji says Nollywood stars who back bad leaders share blame for hardship
Nollywood actor Olaide Olabanji has criticised colleagues who, he says, support politicians that have added little to Nigeria’s development.
In an Instagram video on Thursday he spoke about ailing celebrities and the state of healthcare. He condemned actors who will not use their platforms against bad governance and warned that their children would inherit the consequences. He also criticised unnamed actors who, he said, helped politicians share rice and beans in 2023, and asked what that money was worth now.
“Don’t destroy people’s lives because of what you are benefiting from bad leaders. Those who supported bad leaders in the past are responsible for the hardship that Nigerians are going through today. We contributed to where Nigeria is today. Yet, we keep supporting evil.”
He said many stars end up on sickbeds, that colleagues refuse to speak because of “stomach infrastructure,” and that better hospitals might exist if more of them had told government the truth. Leaders they back, he added, do not use those hospitals; they travel abroad, even for minor complaints, while sick actors turn to social media for donations.
He asked whether campaign cash from 2023 could build a child’s future when petrol is around N1,400 a litre.
The charge is collective, not a named indictment. Olabanji places entertainers inside the same bargain as any client of patronage: visibility and food in exchange for silence. His test is practical. If the money is gone and the hospitals are still weak, the 2023 plates of rice did not purchase development.
Whether colleagues accept that they share responsibility is another matter. The video puts the question on the record: a platform used only to endorse power is also a platform that declined to demand hospitals, power, roads and security while the country still needed them.
