Veteran Nollywood actor and filmmaker, Jide Kosoko has said he is in debt after his historical epic, “Eleko: Oba Esugbayi,” failed to recoup its production cost of more than ₦300 million at the cinemas.

Kosoko disclosed this in an interview on the African A-List podcast, a clip of which has gone viral on social media.

He explained that the money for the film did not come from his own pocket and was not a gift. It was put in by people who invested in the project and expected returns, and the film went to cinemas in the hope of delivering them. According to him, “different things happened” and the money was not recovered.

The little the film earned was shared among those involved. Describing his situation, he said that anyone looking for a person with debt “dancing around their neck” should look no further than him.

Kosoko has also made clear that the debt does not refer to unpaid wages. He said the cast and crew who worked on the production had been paid, but the film did not bring in the returns he and the investors had hoped for. He acknowledged the heavy investments made by cinema operators when asked about how the film’s earnings were shared.

“Eleko: Oba Esugbayi” tells the story of Oba Esugbayi Eleko and his resistance to British colonial rule in Lagos. It was Kosoko’s first cinema production, released under his Jide Kosoko Film Presentation banner in March 2026.

The cast includes Femi Branch in the title role, alongside Femi Adebayo, Saidi Balogun, Dele Odule and Yinka Quadri. Days after its release, Kosoko said the film grossed about ₦18.3 million over its opening weekend.

His comments come weeks after actor and filmmaker Ramsey Nouah said that taking a film to cinemas does not always make financial sense. Nouah noted that only a small fraction of films released in cinemas recoup their costs, and that many producers fail to recover their capital even after heavy spending on promotion.