Nollywood’s ‘The Herd’ Sparks Arewa Outrage - Fictional Profiling vs. Fatal Reality Explained

Nollywood film The Herd has crossed 30 million Netflix views, becoming one of Nigeria’s most-watched films of the year. Yet its success has been eclipsed by a fierce backlash from segments of the Arewa community, complete with online boycott calls and accusations of ethnic profiling.

The irony is brutal: A film dramatizing Nigeria’s catastrophic kidnapping crisis is generating significantly more social outrage from Northern voices than the actual, daily kidnappings that are ravaging the region.

The Film’s Content and Its Critics

The Herd follows Gosi, whose friends are ambushed and kidnapped by gunmen disguised as cattle herders after a wedding. The film’s opening scene, showing herders suddenly pulling out weapons, is the flashpoint.

Former presidential aide Bashir Ahmad led the criticism, arguing the movie unfairly profiles Fulani herders, stating that while some bandits are Fulani, the majority of herders are innocent victims. The core concern: international viewers will walk away believing every Fulani herder is a terrorist.

The film, however, goes to lengths to show complexity:

• The Perpetrators: The criminal network includes Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo characters.

• The Hypocrisy: The gang is shown praying yet murders without hesitation, and a Yoruba pastor is implicated in the grotesque trade of human body parts.

• The Hero: The detective who successfully leads the rescue operation is a Muslim Northerner.

A Crisis that Dwarfs the Fiction

The timing of the film's backlash makes the critique seem critically misplaced.

The North remains the epicenter of mass abductions. Just days before the film’s Netflix debut, gunmen stormed a girls’ school in Kebbi, abducting 25 students. On November 21, the same day the film launched, 303 students and 12 teachers were kidnapped from St. Mary’s Catholic School in Niger State. Over 1,500 students have been taken across the North since the Chibok abductions in 2014.

Critics of the backlash argue that the fictional depiction of a multi-ethnic criminal economy that mirrors this horrific reality is a necessary truth. One user summed up the national sentiment: “The movie generated more anger than the kidnappings themselves. How does that make sense?”

The True Cost of Silence

The film’s full context, which indicts the entire ecosystem of insecurity, from corrupt institutions to complicit middlemen across all tribes, is being ignored by those focusing solely on the visual stereotype of the opening scene.

The outrage is less about the content of the film and more about the discomfort of the truth it reflects. When the loudest reaction from a region destroyed by violence is directed at protecting public perception rather than confronting the criminals, it confirms the film’s underlying thesis: The Herd is not the problem. The problem is the painful reality that too many would rather not face.