There are some actors Nigerians did not need to see the name of before recognising them. Olu Jacobs was one of them.

For decades, his face appeared on Nigerian screens in one role or another. Sometimes he was the father. Sometimes the king. Sometimes the wealthy businessman, the politician, the elder or the man who had walked into the room with enough authority to make everyone else suddenly sit up.

Even when the character was difficult to like, there was something familiar about watching Olu Jacobs play him. He had a voice people recognised, a presence that could fill a scene and a way of delivering a line that made even an ordinary exchange feel important.

On September 16, 2026, that familiar presence became part of Nigerian screen history. Jacobs died at 84, with his family announcing his death in a statement that described him as “The Lion of Lufodo” and asked for privacy as they mourned him. But the story of Olu Jacobs did not begin with Nollywood.

Before Nollywood, there was the stage

Long before the Nigerian movie industry became the global cultural force it is today, Jacobs was already building a career across theatre and television.

He grew up in Kano and was involved in drama and debating at Holy Trinity School. His interest in acting became more serious after he watched one of Hubert Ogunde’s concert parties at the Colonial Hotel in Kano. That experience helped convince him to pursue acting, eventually taking him to Britain, where he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

His early professional years were spent largely away from the Nigerian movie industry audiences would later know him for. He worked in British theatre and television, including appearances in productions such as The Goodies, Till Death Us Do Part, The Professionals and The Tomorrow People. He also appeared in international productions during the 1980s, including The Dogs of War, Pirates and Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend.

By the time Jacobs returned to Nigeria, he was bringing with him years of stage and screen experience.

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He appeared in the NTA series The Third Eye in 1990, and as Nigeria’s home-video industry grew, he became one of the actors whose work helped give the emerging industry some of its most recognisable faces.

That transition matters because Jacobs belonged to a generation that connected different eras of Nigerian entertainment. He came from the theatre tradition, worked internationally, appeared on television and then became deeply associated with the Nigerian film industry as it found its own identity.

The man behind the roles Nigerians remember

It is easy to reduce an actor’s career to a list of movies, especially when the list is as long as Jacobs’. But his contribution to Nollywood was also about what he represented.

He brought a theatre-trained discipline to an industry that was developing rapidly. He could play authority without making every character feel the same. His performances often carried the weight of someone who understood that acting was more than simply memorising lines.

And Nigerians noticed.

Over the years, he became one of those actors whose presence could change the feel of a production. A younger actor could be sharing a scene with him, and suddenly the exchange had another level of seriousness. He was not simply filling a role; he had become part of the language of Nigerian screen acting.

That reputation eventually brought major recognition. He won the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 2007 and received an Industry Merit Award at the 2013 Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards. The Africa Movie Academy Awards also honoured his career with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

But perhaps one of the clearest ways to understand his contribution is to look beyond the screen.

Jacobs and his wife, actress Joke Silva, built the Lufodo Group and founded the Lufodo Academy of Performing Arts. The academy became part of their wider work in theatre, film and training, giving younger performers a place to develop their craft.

That part of his career is easy to overlook when remembering the characters he played, but it is important. An actor’s legacy does not only live in old movies. It can also live in the people who learned from the industry they helped build.

A career that outlived the industry that made him famous

Olu Jacobs worked across generations. There were Nigerians who knew him from television before Nollywood became what it is today. There were others who grew up watching him in the movies that defined the home-video era. And there is a younger generation that may know him less from his most active years and more as the respected elder whose name has remained attached to Nigerian acting.

That is perhaps what makes his death feel bigger than the passing of a familiar actor.

Jacobs’ career stretched across theatre, British television, international cinema, Nigerian television and Nollywood. It crossed the period when Nigerian actors were primarily known at home and the period when Nigerian stories and performers began reaching audiences far beyond the country.

He was part of that transition and when people talk about the actors who helped shape Nigerian screen acting, his name will naturally sit within that conversation.

Meiza Nigeria