I love Ghana. Over the past 4 years I have visited at least once every year, and this year I am going back. But something has become increasingly embarrassing, and I can no longer ignore it.
Every few months, there is always a Ghanaian television station airing a Nollywood film for free, without the producer’s permission. I just saw a post by director Femi Igwe addressing this exact issue, calling out FRESH TV for airing a film that was barely 48 hours old on a national station in Ghana. It is no longer funny.
This is not a new complaint. It has been going on for years. Ruth Kadiri raised the alarm about it back in 2023. Omoni Oboli called it utterly shameful after her film Twin Deception was aired on Ghanaian TV the same day it premiered on her own YouTube channel. Bimbo Ademoye said the same thing happened to her, and even claimed a station stole both her film’s title and poster design before airing it without permission. Nosa Rex went through the exact same thing this year, his film Prince of Peace aired on Ghanaian television just six hours after it dropped on YouTube.
I think it is time the Nigerian government looked into this properly, because it does not appear to be a case of no copyright law existing in Ghana. Ghana actually has one. Under the Copyright Act, 2005, Act 690, broadcasting a film without the rights holder’s permission is a clear violation, and Ghana’s own National Film Authority has said this publicly, warning stations that offenders risk having their licenses suspended or revoked. The law exists. What seems to be missing is anyone actually enforcing it with consequences.
What baffles me is how these stations even get away with it operationally. They go to a Nigerian filmmaker’s own YouTube channel, download the film, and put it up on national television. Imagine a Nigerian station, say Arise Television, going to a Ghanaian filmmaker’s channel, downloading their new release, and airing it nationally without any contact or compensation. That would rightly be called theft, because that is exactly what it is.
And some of them always bring up the same tired argument, that they are helping to promote the film. How exactly are you promoting a film when the person who made it never agreed to it, never got paid for it, and loses viewers who would have streamed it properly because your station already gave it away for free? A producer releases a film, and within 48 hours, before it has even had the chance to earn back its budget, a station has already put it up for anyone to watch without paying anything toward it. That is exploitation and it has to stop.
