Francis Duru’s death caps a hard year for Nollywood as actors turn to public appeals for medical bills

Francis Duru’s death caps a hard year for Nollywood as actors turn to public appeals for medical bills

The death of Francis Duru at 57 is the latest loss in a hard year for Nigeria’s film industry. It comes as the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) presses for laws to protect its members, and as more ailing actors turn to social media to pay their hospital bills.

A long list of losses

By mid-August, P.M. News had counted 13 Nollywood actors who had died in 2026, and said even that list was incomplete. They included Alexx Ekubo, who died of cancer in Lagos on May 11 at the age of 40; Oby Kechere, known to audiences as Madam Koi Koi, who died on April 27 after a long illness; veteran Yoruba actor Kola Oyewo, 80, in June; and Davis Offor, 85, in April. Temitope Osoba died of breast cancer on August 5 at 40.

The deaths continued after that count. On September 30, actor Chijioke “Cjay” Nwokafor died suddenly. Actress and filmmaker Nkechi Blessing, who had cast him in her new film, said she had spoken to him that morning. Duru’s family announced his death on October 23.

Appeals on social media

For actors who fall seriously ill, social media has become the main safety net. In July, Ikechukwu Nweke revealed he had been treating colon cancer since 2025 and had already spent more than ₦15 million. “Today, I’m humbly asking for your help. No amount is too small,” he said in an Instagram video, according to Premium Times.

Weeks later, veteran actress Ngozi Nwosu said she had been in hospital for three weeks and needed about ₦30 million for three operations. “Don’t let me die,” she pleaded. Abia State Governor Alex Otti later approved help with the first part of her bills, his aide said. It was not the first time Nwosu had needed the public’s help: in 2013, donations helped pay for surgery in the United Kingdom.

Such appeals have become familiar. Many veteran actors were paid modest fees per role during the home-video era and received no royalties as their films were copied and resold, leaving them with little to fall back on in old age.

What the guild offers

The AGN has tried to address this. Former president Emeka Rollas said the guild approached the National Health Insurance Scheme in 2014, leading to an industry health insurance scheme in 2015. In 2020 the guild signed an agreement with Medicard Health Management, and by 2023 it was offering members HMO cover from ₦1,700 a month, plus cover for accidents on set.

Uptake has been the problem. In 2022, Rollas told The Whistler that the guild would not pay the medical bills of members who chose not to join. “Any member who doesn’t want to get sick and beg money in the future can sign up for the scheme,” he said. In December 2023 he told the News Agency of Nigeria that some actors “have the celebrity mentality that everything should be done for them for free.”

His successor, Abubakar Sanusi Yakubu, who was sworn in at the end of 2025, wants to go further. In August he called for an Act of Parliament to make the AGN a statutory professional body, which the guild says would bring standard contracts, royalties and residuals. “The future we desire cannot be built on goodwill alone. It must be anchored on law,” he said.

What comes next

None of this is known to have played any part in Duru’s death; his family has said only that he died after a brief illness. But he dies in a year when the industry has buried actors from every generation, and when its own guild is arguing that goodwill and public appeals are no longer enough to look after the people who built Nollywood.

Sources

More about this person