Temitope “Tope” Olowoniyan is an actress, television host, filmmaker, producer, executive producer and the founder of Bayla Productions. For more than a decade, she has built a career in front of the camera, appearing in King of Boys: The Return of the King, Sista, Dwindle, L.I.F.E., The Order of Things, Set Up 2 and The Men’s Club: Next Gen, and on shows like Wake Up Nigeria. Her continuing television career includes hosting Kellogg’s Superstars Quiz Show. But somewhere between moving from Zaria to Lagos and becoming a familiar face on screen, she began to want more say in the stories she helped bring to life.

That desire led her to found Bayla Productions, a growing production company with a body of original work that includes Her Next Chapter, Love Notes, Lights, Camera, It’s My Turn and The Father’s Path. It also led her to build Tope Olowoniyan TV, one of the platforms where those stories reach audiences. On September 10, 2026, she released A Summer for Fountain on Tope Olowoniyan TV, her debut original feature under Bayla Productions, which she acted in, produced and solely executive produced. The film has now crossed 3.6 million views on YouTube.

Tope talks about the grandparents who raised her in Zaria, the craft she built on stage and screen, the years of training and work that taught her to think like a producer, and the home she is building for African stories.

This Is Tope Olowoniyan’s Story As Told To Zia

I grew up with my grandparents in Zaria, and I think that’s where everything started. My granddad and I had a ritual. I would watch the news, write down everything the newscaster said on a full scap sheet of paper, then read it back to him like I was the one on television. Eugenia Abu was my role model. I was going to be a broadcaster, simple.

His best friend was a professor of English, and by the time I was in senior secondary school, he was already training me. I even wrote the foreword for his book. I was invested in everything that would make me a fantastic broadcaster. I didn’t know it then, but I was already learning how stories get told.

The Zaria I grew up in was communal. Everybody knew everybody. I trekked to school with my neighbours, and some of them are still my friends today. It was peaceful, even though I experienced some of the riots and the bomb blasts. My church was attacked. I lost two friends. There was chaos, but there was still peace. It was not always the way the media portrayed it. I am very cultured and very homely because of where I grew up, and the North has a strong role to play in my sense of self and in the way I relate to people.

Acting was never the plan. I studied English and Theatre Arts at ABU, but theatre was just how I filled my electives. I’m heavily introverted, always the quiet one at the back, but every time I stepped on a stage in drama village, I became somebody else. By my third year, my head of department (HOD) noticed and suggested I take the theatre courses seriously, just in case I ever wanted to act. I laughed. I used to say I could never be an actress. Look at me now.

When I moved to Lagos, the culture shock was crazy. People kept saying, “You don’t look Yoruba.” I didn’t know Yoruba people had a look. Where I’m from, nobody asked what you were. Everybody was just a human being. Lagos taught me to read between the lines, to hear what people say and what they’re not saying. But I made sure I never lost my sense of self. Who I am should not be guided by who people are.

I completed NYSC between 2014 and 2015, and in 2015 I travelled to the United Kingdom for professional broadcast training. When I returned to Nigeria in 2016, I looked for a job in broadcasting. It took a while, but eventually I was called to audition for Linda Ikeji TV. I joined in December 2016 and worked there until September 2018 as a producer and presenter. I created shows for the platform and hosted them too. From 2019 to 2021, I was a live show host on Wake Up Nigeria at TVC. At the same time, I was building my acting career. I’d finish my day shift and head straight to film sets, juggling live television with the acting roles that were beginning to come my way.

Those years gave me practical experience developing programmes, creating content and understanding production beyond being in front of the camera. Television was my first producing school, even if I didn’t call it that at the time. After my time at TVC, I focused more on acting while continuing to explore hosting opportunities. My screen work has included King of Boys: The Return of the King, Sista, Dwindle, L.I.F.E., The Order of Things, Set Up 2 and The Men’s Club: Next Gen.

But before film, there was stage. I did shows for the Lagos Theatre Festival and in Abuja, and I performed for five days at a world theatre festival in Germany. My theatre training carried me. I’ve always wanted my talent, preparation and performance to speak for me. I approached my King of Boys audition with a spirit of excellence, because if you’re going to experience me through my work, I want you to experience the best version of my creativity. These days I’m also particular about the stories I join. If I read a script and think my parents, or my little cousins who look up to me, would learn nothing valuable from it, I walk away, respectfully.

My years of auditioning taught me the importance of preparation, consistency and showing up ready. Every opportunity was a chance to grow, whether or not I got the role. If an audition was at 8 a.m., I’d arrive by 5 a.m. to be among the first five names on the audition list, sometimes chatting with the security men while we waited to be let into the building. My parents would have preferred that I explored opportunities in the UK, but I was convinced I could build a career as a talk show host in Nigeria. I knew that if I was going to make it here, I had to be ready to put in the work.

I’m grateful for the growth I’ve experienced in this industry, and now I’m carving my own path. Sometimes, you have to bring your own table. My journey has been about process, consistency, discipline, building and evolving. I’m an actor, and I’ve evolved into actively producing films as well. That journey didn’t happen overnight. It was built on years of training, practical experience, relationships and preparation. I went for broadcast training without knowing exactly where it would lead. Here I am, years later, still acting and also producing my own films through my production company.

“Now I’m carving my own path. Sometimes, you have to bring your own table.”

Bayla Productions was born from a question. When I first came to Lagos, someone I looked up to asked me, “What’s your ten-year projection?” At 22, I had dreams and ambitions, but I hadn’t learned to structure them into a long-term plan. That conversation taught me to become more intentional about my goals, not just professionally, but financially and personally. Work goals, financial goals, travel goals, enjoyment goals, all of it.

When I said I wanted to shoot my own films, he asked if I had a company. I didn’t. He said the name had to be something authentic to me. I already had a name saved for the daughter I hope to have one day. I want her to grow up hearing her name everywhere. I want her to know that before she was born, mummy was already thinking of her, and that I built something entirely hers. That’s how Bayla was born. The company carries her name. Tope Olowoniyan TV, the platform, carries mine.

“I want her to know that before she was born, mummy was already thinking of her, and that I built something entirely hers.”

Bayla isn’t a one-film company. Before A Summer for Fountain, I had already developed Her Next Chapter, Love Notes, Lights, Camera, It’s My Turn and The Father’s Path. They are different stories in different formats, from talk shows and personal conversations to entertainment, and Fountain is the next stage of something I’ve been building for years.

Moving from being the talent to the production side taught me a lot about the business of film. For one, you don’t sleep. It cost me time with friends, but it didn’t cost me my relationships. I’m a very involved producer. I’m not someone who will hire you and just let you go and do it. You carry me along. I want to know everything. I want to be sure that you understand my vision. I also had to learn how to lead people. I’m a very straightforward person, but I’ve learned that managing people requires understanding their personalities. Some people respond better to encouragement, others to direct communication.

Leadership has taught me to be more patient, empathetic and intentional about how I work with people. I also believe in paying people for their work. At the same time, I’m grateful for the generosity I’ve received from people I built relationships with over the years, and the discounts I got were heartwarming. My director, Jide “JBlaze” Oyegbile, and I auditioned for King of Boys together. We brainstormed how we wanted to approach it, and we won together. My art director was once a set design assistant. My makeup artist was an SFX assistant. We were all building at the same time, and now we’re all leading teams.

Building is like farming. I know, because I grew up around a farm in Zaria. We planted beans, rice and maize, and I went to the farm a lot. You plant the seed, it goes into the ground and looks dead, and you water it even though you’re seeing absolutely nothing. Then one day, after the roots have gone deep into the ground, something comes back up.

My first talk shows didn’t make money. But women who had dealt with postpartum depression were in my comments, saying Her Next Chapter helped them find themselves again. Women stop me at the gym to say the same thing. That is what money cannot buy. And I remind myself: you may not make all the money on your first project, but it is your intellectual property. Nobody can take that away from you.

People ask why YouTube. It’s simple. Where are people watching things now? I’m not there because everybody is there. I’m there because that’s where I can sell my story and get a large audience, and when you see me, you’ll define me by the quality of my work. I wasn’t making a film for YouTube. I was making a film, and YouTube is just the outlet.

Which brings me to A Summer for Fountain, my debut original feature under Bayla Productions. I acted in it, and I also produced it and solely executive produced it. I had co-executive produced a film that went to cinemas before, but this is the first film I have executive produced entirely on my own. It premiered on September 10, 2026 on Tope Olowoniyan TV, and it has now crossed 3.6 million views on YouTube. I didn’t write the script; a friend of mine did, but I knew exactly what I wanted it to do. I told my writer I wanted a film that teaches people to stay connected to their family.

Death is an inevitable part of life, and that’s why I believe we should be intentional about the time we have with the people we love. We shouldn’t wait until someone is gone before wishing we had spent more time with them. I miss my grandparents every day, but I have no regrets. From the moment I started making money, I was present. Every weekend trip I could make, I made. In this money-driven craze, people are becoming increasingly disconnected from family. I wanted to stir chords in us that remind us of our humanity.

My grandmother was very ambitious. She had a cooking show, worked with UNICEF, and was among the first people in Northern Nigeria to educate women in rural communities about polio. I was closer to my granddad, but I am very much like her. She chased every dream she had.

That’s also why Fountain’s story matters to me. The film is about more than grief and family. It also explores love, compatibility, emotional fulfilment and the choices people make when choosing a life partner. Fountain is in a relationship that looks right on paper, and her journey is about asking whether it gives her the emotional connection and fulfilment she truly wants. I’ve built my life on the belief that everything you want is on the other side of your fear.

I’ve also learned to speak confidently about the value of my work. Earlier in my career, I would practise discussing my rates in front of a mirror. Over time, I’ve become more comfortable having those conversations with confidence and clarity.

What I want now is to keep telling our stories the way I want to tell them. One thing that matters deeply to me is creating stories that allow people to recognise themselves in the characters they watch. I want audiences, especially women, to see reflections of their experiences, struggles, decisions and growth in my work. Storytelling should go beyond entertainment. It should start conversations, encourage reflection and sometimes help people see their circumstances from a different perspective.

Bayla Productions is the creative company through which I want to develop, produce and build a catalogue of original intellectual property. Tope Olowoniyan TV is one of the platforms through which those stories can reach audiences, a home for original African films, talk shows, conversations and entertainment.

My long-term ambition is to create high-quality African stories that can travel beyond geographical boundaries and connect with audiences around the world. I still pray to take my films to festivals, to travel the world and share my stories my way. The past 11 years didn’t just go into acting. They went into understanding production, from the business side to the creative side. I want people to recognise my work for its storytelling, production quality and performances, regardless of the platform they find it on. Anybody, anywhere, should watch my film and see that she made a good film. That’s what I want.

And if you take one thing from A Summer for Fountain, let it be this: your loved ones are not here forever. No matter how much you’re chasing that bag, you may get the whole bag and have only yourself to enjoy it with. If you’re lucky enough to still have your grandmother, spend more time with her. Tomorrow is not promised.

That’s the legacy I want to build: stories that matter, told well, that leave people more present with the people they love. I’m still growing, still learning, still building, and I’m committed to telling stories that matter.