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The long-simmering disagreement between veteran actors Yemi Solade and Pete Edochie over who truly holds seniority in the Nigerian film industry has taken a fresh turn, with Solade now dragging the legacy of pioneer actor Orlando Martins into the conversation to make his point.
The feud traces back to Yemi Solade's earlier assertion that despite Pete Edochie being older in age, he himself had been active in the profession longer.
That claim resurfaced after Edochie sat down with comedian Isbae U for an episode of the online series Curiosity Made Me Ask, where the Things Fall Apart star was asked which actor he most admired.
His answer left no room for humility, saying he saw himself as ranked above every one of his peers. He went further, daring anyone who felt they belonged in his class to say so openly.
Pete Edochie traced his roots in the craft back to 1962, describing his debut on stage at age fifteen in a production of The Merchant of Venice, a period he noted came long before the word Nollywood ever existed.
He has previously pointed to his lead role as Okonkwo in the 1985 screen adaptation of Chinua Achebe's classic novel as proof of how far back his contribution stretches, noting that it preceded the 1992 release of Living in Bondage, a film widely credited with birthing the modern Nigerian film industry, by seven years.
That timeline puts Pete Edochie's career start well ahead of Yemi Solade's own account, in which he says he entered acting in 1977 at just seventeen years old.
Rather than concede, Yemi Solade pivoted his defense toward history itself, resurrecting the name of Orlando Martins, a Lagos-born performer whose stage and screen career began generations before either man was born.
Orlando Martins, who lived from 1899 to 1985, built a name for himself in British theatre and film, appearing in titles like Sanders of the River and The Man from Morocco, and was ranked among Britain's fifteen most popular actors in a 1947 survey.
Yemi Solade shared details of Orlando Martins' upbringing, noting his birth on Lagos Island to a father of Brazilian descent and a Nigerian mother, alongside a rundown of his filmography. His accompanying message suggested the debate over seniority was pointless once the real pioneers of Nigerian cinema were acknowledged.
By invoking Orlando Martins, Yemi Solade appears less interested in directly rebutting Edochie than in reframing the entire argument, suggesting that true seniority in Nigerian film belongs to figures who predate both men by decades.
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