21-year-old Nigerian girl bags First Class at Cambridge University with Nollywood film thesis

Precious Oyelade’s dissertation scored so highly, it will be published and contribute to discussions around black identity in Britain. She defied the statistics to graduate with a degree in politics, psychology and sociology from Cambridge University with her dissertation, Changing representations of
Nigerian identity: An exploration through Nollywood and its audience.

She was inspired by her heritage. “For me it was the issue of identity. I really wanted to look at how Nollywood impacts those who have grown up in the diaspora, who identify as Nigerian but still see themselves also as British and what distance exists between us and those in Nigeria in relation to film,” she explained.

“In my study, I found that we as a diaspora have the choice and an ability to decide which part of our identity we want to focus on.” The decision to write the most significant project of her academic career on Nollywood was a risk she admitted she nearly didn’t take.

“People were advising me to do something that is popular within academic culture so that I could get the best supervision from someone who’s a specialist. It was a big leap of faith especially in a traditionally academic institution like Cambridge,” she said.

After receiving her result, she said she nearly fainted. “Once you get past a 75 [mark] the work is regarded as publishable. I scored a 78 so my supervisor has been pushing me to get it published because it’s opening a wider narrative about the Black British experience and the fact that we’re not a homogenous group.”….. congrats, bt pls watch ur back. My mind tells me dt dt girl behind u isn’t happy 4ur success…..