Omoni Oboli Biography: Early life, education, career, family and net worth

This is the biography of Omoni Oboli, the Nigerian actress, scriptwriter, film director, producer and filmmaker. In this article, most of the important questions and facts that you have asked about this popular actress is answered.

Omoni Oboli started her acting career in Nigeria in the late 1990s but many people only came to recognise her in the late 2000s, on her return to Nollywood. She is also an internationally recognised actress. In the next section, we provide a summary of the most important facts about the actress who is also a filmmaker.

10 facts about Omoni Oboli

1. Omoni Oboli was born on 22nd April 1978 in Benin City, Edo State, so she is 42 years old at the time of writing.
2. The actress is from Mosogar, a kingdom in Sapele, Delta State.
3. Omoni Oboli has a degree in Foreign Languages (majoring in French) from the University of Benin (UNIBEN) and she also has a certificate in digital filmmaking from the New York Film Academy.
4. She made her Nollywood debut in 1996 in the film Bitter Encounter.
5. Omoni married her husband, Nnamdi Oboli, in 2000 and they have three sons together.
6. She is the first Nollywood actress to win the Best Actress Award at the Los Angeles Movie Awards and at the Harlem International Film Festival.
7. Omoni Oboli made her notable debut as a director and co-producer in 2014 with the comedy film, Being Mrs Elliot.
8. She also directed the political-themed drama, Love is War, where she also plays the lead role opposite Richard Mofe-Damijo. The film also stars Jide Kosoko.
9. In 2019, Oboli launched a 3D Mink Lash Collection product line under her beauty company, Ageless by Omoni.
10. She founded a charity organisation named the Omoni Oboli Foundation in 2012 that aims at taking care of less privileged women and children.

Also read: Omotola Jalade Ekeinde Biography: Early life, career, personal life, net worth & more

Omoni Oboli Biography: Early life

The Nigerian actress and director Omoni Oboli was born on 22nd April 1978 in Benin City, Edo State. However, thorough research revealed that she is from Mosogar, a kingdom in Sapele, Delta State. She grew up in Delta State as the second and last child of her parents.

When Oboli was of school age, she started her primary school education at the Delta Steel Company Primary School and went on to the Delta Steel Company Technical High School for her secondary school education.

Omoni developed an interest in presenting and acting while still schooling and joined literary & debating and drama clubs. Also, during her primary and secondary school days, Omoni Oboli played part in the writing, directing, producing and acting of plays for her school’s performances.

After she completed her secondary school education, she got admission into the prestigious University of Benin (UNIBEN) to study Foreign Languages. Omoni Oboli graduated from UNIBEN with a second class upper degree with a major in French.

She later travelled abroad to hone her filmmaking skill at the New York Film Academy. There, she completed a course in digital filmmaking in 2000.

Omoni Oboli Biography: Career

Early acting career

As mentioned earlier, unknown to many people, Omoni Oboli made her debut in Nollywood a long time ago. She first acted in the 1996 film Bitter Encounter, where she played the role of a secretary. In the same year, she played a minor role in another film titled Shame.

However, she got major roles in three other films that year including Not My Will, Destined To Die and Another Campus Tale. Omoni Oboli had seemed on the right track for a successful Nollywood career at that early stage but she had other plans. It was around this time that she decided to return to school. It took over 10 years for her to return to the screen.

Later acting career

Omoni Oboli returned to the Nigerian film industry as part of the cast of the 2009 film, Entanglement. While many may not have noticed her because the film was dominated by other big names like Desmond Elliot and Mercy Johnson. That same year, she also played a major role in Kunle Afolayan’s award-winning film, The Figurine. Omoni Oboli’s son, Tobe Oboli also played a memorable part in The Figurine.

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Thereafter, she began getting more roles and featured on Bent Arrows in 2010. As the lead actress in Lonzo Nzekwe’s Anchor Baby, she won the Best Actress Award at the Los Angeles Movie Awards and at the Harlem International Film Festival. Both were international awards and she was the first Nollywood actress to win them.

In 2012, Omoni Oboli starred in a Nigerian-Ukrainian drama titled Feathered Dreams. In 2014,  the actress also starred in the Nigerian thriller titled Brother’s Keeper. She also appeared in many other notable films like Fifty and Render to Caesar.

Oboli played a small part in the second instalment of The Wedding Party in 2017. She and Ramsey Nouah delivered an impressive performance in the film My Wife and I in 2017. The 2019 film, Sugar Rush featured her as well.

Director and producer

However, Omoni Oboli made her notable debut as a director and co-producer in 2014 with the comedy film, Being Mrs Elliot. Next, she directed The First Lady in 2015. But her earliest most popular film as a director and producer was Wives on Strike (2016). The same year, she also dropped Okafor’s Law which proved to be another massive success.

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You may also like to read: Omoni Oboli: Actress recounts what it felt like convincing people to watch Nollywood films

In 2017, she also released a sequel to Wives on Strike and the next year, she directed the 2018 comedy film Moms at War. Her most recent film is the political-themed drama, Love is War, where she also plays the lead role along with Richard Mofe-Damijo and Jide Kosoko.

Omoni Oboli Biography: Controversy

Omoni Oboli is one of the few celebrities who do not get themselves caught in the web of scandals often. But, her record is not completely clean as well. We found that four of the films that she directed and either produced or co-produced were subject to disputes bothering on the line of intellectual theft.

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Jude Idada, an award-winning writer accused Omoni Oboli of stealing his script for use in the 2016 film Okafor’s Law. Pulse also mentions that Idada had also accused her of using his treatment of the 2014 film, Being Mrs Elliott, without contacting or paying him.

The case for Being Mrs Elliott did not reach the courts after Oboli allegedly said she didn’t remember receiving Idada’s treatment.

But the second accusation caused the filmmaker to cancel the initial premiere of Okafor’s Law on 24th March 2017. While the court granted her permission to go ahead and premiere it on 31st March 2017, the case was only resolved in 2019.

Omoni Oboli was declared victorious by the court on 2nd May 2019 according to a Pulse report.

Also in 2015, her film The First Lady was also alleged to have caused some trouble between her and an unnamed woman, who had supposedly written the screenplay for Oboli. This time, the case never made it to court but was settled amicably.

There were reports that Omoni Oboli had drawn heavily from Spike Lee’s 2015 comedy Chi-Raq to create her Wives on Strike film in 2016.

While this was not a legal case, Oboli had to clear her name. She issued a statement discrediting the reports. She argued that Wives on Strike had been a concept she conceived a long time ago before she even came across Chi-Raq.

Omoni Oboli Foundation

The actress and film director founded the Omoni Oboli Foundation in 2012. The foundation aims to take care of less privileged women and children. According to her Wikipedia Wikipedia page, the foundation has done the following:

• On her 40th birthday, in 2018, the foundation launched an initiative called Sister Lizzy’s Kitchen. According to Bella Naija, the initiative aimed to feed 500 street kids in Lagos State every week. However, it was not clear how long the programme lasted.
• It also fed more than 200 less privileged children at Delta Steel Complex and handed them gifts.
• The foundation organised an excursion to a milk factory for Ecole Divine Nursery Primary and Secondary School children.

Omoni Oboli Biography: Personal life

Omoni Oboli got married to Nnamdi Oboli in 2000 immediately after she left the New York Film Academy. The couple has three sons together but she suffered a miscarriage before she started bearing children. Following the death of late Ibidunni Ighodalo, Omoni Oboli revealed that she was planning to adopt a daughter with the help of the late beauty queen.

Read more: Omoni Oboli reveals Ibidunni Ighodalo convinced her to adopt a baby girl

Omoni and Nnamdi Oboli’s first son is Tobe Oboli and he will be 19 years on 5 October 2020. Gozi and Chizi Oboli are respectively the second and third sons of Omoni Oboli.

Tobe Oboli will be 17 years on 26 July 2020 while Chizi Oboli celebrated his 15th birthday on 30 March 2020.

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The actress lost her father in 2017 while her mother had died before that time. In an interview with The Cable, Omoni Oboli revealed that she had grown up in a broken home.

“My mother had two kids. She broke up with my father when we were little. I didn’t even know my parents together. I was a baby when they broke up,” she says.

Omoni Oboli’s book

In addition to being a widely acclaimed actress and filmmaker, Oboli also authored a book in 2018 titled, The Stars are Ageless. The book is subtitled, Finding My Light In Life. It is a memoir that details the life of the amazing actress.

To get to know more about Omoni Oboli, you will have to read her book.

Omoni Oboli Biography: Net worth

When we researched what the net worth of Omoni Oboli is, we could not find a verifiable answer. While Austinemedia says that she was worth $400,000 in 2018, we find it hard to trust this figure because there was no explanation on how the figure was arrived at.

Also, this is 2020, and it is likely that the net worth of Omoni Oboli has changed. We know that she has other sources of income besides her film-making and acting career.

For instance, in 2019, Oboli launched a 3D Mink Lash Collection product line under her beauty company, Ageless by Omoni. Additionally, she is the brand ambassador of Pedini Nigeria; a company that deals in kitchen equipment and electronics.

Also, she has an endorsement deal with Nunu Milk and Royal Caribbean Nigeria, an international cruise brand.

Final thoughts …

Omoni Oboli is a Nigerian actress that exudes ageless beauty off-screen and displays charm and talent while on screen. Her early foray into Nollywood followed by nearly a decade hiatus shows that she maintained the passion to pursue her dreams despite taking her foot off the pedal for some time.

Most of the films that Oboli has directed have been massive successes showing that she knows her onions. Her charity organisation is also an important lesson in giving back to the community.

Now, let us see some additional information about Omoni Oboli.

Omoni Oboli additional information

Selected Omoni Oboli’s filmography

1. Bitter Encounter (1996)
2. Not My Will (1996)
3. Destined To Die (1996)
4. Another Campus Tale (1996)
5. Guilty Pleasures (2009)
6. Entanglement (2009)
7. The Figurine (2009)
8. Bursting Out (2010)
9. Anchor Baby (2010)
10. Bent Arrows (2010)
11. Feathered Dreams (2012)
12. Stolen Tomorrow (2013)
13. 30 Days in Atlanta (2014)
14. Brother’s Keeper (2014)
15. Render to Caeser (2014)
16. Being Mrs Elliot (2014)
17. As Crazy As It Gets (2015)
18. Fifty (2015)
19. Lunch Time Heroes (2015)
20. The Duplex (2015)
21. First Lady (2015)
22. Code of Silence (2015)
23. Of Bad Faith (2015)
24. Wives on Strike (2016)
25. Okafor’s Law (2016)
26. Wedding Party 2 (2017)
27. The Women (2017)
28. Wives on Strike: The Revolution (2017)
29. My Wife and I (2017)
30. Wings of a Dove (2018)
31. Moms at War (2018)
32. Love is War (2019)
33. Sugar Rush (2019)
34. Oloture (2019)

Omoni Oboli awards

1. Best Actress Narrative Feature at the Los Angeles Movie Awards (2010)
2. Best Actress at the Harlem International Film Festival (2010)
3. Big Screen Actress of the Year at the ELOY Awards (2014)
4. Sun Nollywood Personality of the Year (2015)