The Women Who Made the Films Feel Real: Meet the AMVCA 12 Best Supporting Actress Nominees

Three titans of the 2026 AMVCA Best Supporting Actress category: Bisola Aiyeola (Gingerrr), Amal Umar (The Herd), and Funke Akindele (Behind the Scenes).

Best Supporting Actress is where you find the women who hold entire stories together from the edges. They are not always carrying the headline, but remove them and the whole thing shifts. This year’s category at the 12th Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards is a genuinely difficult one to call — eight nominations drawn from productions that dominated conversations across 2025, spanning Nigerian box office records, a Hausa-language debut feature, and a returning Kenyan series.

The ceremony is set for 9th May 2026 at the Eko Hotel and Suites in Lagos, hosted by Bovi Ugboma and Nomzamo Mbatha, with veteran actress Joke Silva serving as Head Judge. Here is a closer look at every nominee, the films they inhabit, and what this nomination means for each of them.

Linda Ejiofor — The Herd

“The Herd” is a crime thriller directed by Daniel Etim Effiong in his feature directorial debut. The film follows a group of people whose post-wedding convoy is ambushed and kidnapped by armed bandits disguised as cattle herdsmen, unravelling as a story of survival, desperation, and Nigeria’s festering insecurity crisis. Linda Ejiofor plays Adamma, the wife of lead character Gosi, who stays behind due to a recurrent cancer scare and is left to raise a ₦50 million ransom while her husband fights for his life in captivity.

A pivotal moment between Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman and Daniel Etim Effiong in The Herd, which earned nine nominations at the 12th AMVCAs. 

Her journey outside the forest is its own harrowing ordeal — she faces an uncooperative bank, a husband’s financial secrets, and the cruelty of her in-laws, who agree to help only on the condition that she divorces Gosi, exploiting her status as Osu in Igbo culture to extract that concession at her most vulnerable moment. It is a role that carries the full weight of the film’s social commentary, and Ejiofor delivers every layer of it without missing a beat.

Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman portrays Adamma in The Herd, a role exploring the survival of a woman fighting for her kidnapped husband from the outside. Photo Credit: Daniel Etim Effiong/Instagram

This year, Ejiofor is a double nominee — competing for Best Lead Actress for “The Serpent’s Gift” alongside her Best Supporting Actress nod for “The Herd.” It is not her first time at this ceremony either; she won Best Supporting Actress at the 2015 AMVCA for “The Meeting.” More than a decade later, she returns with two nominations in the same cycle.

Olamide Kidbaby — Oversabi Aunty

“Oversabi Aunty” is a comedy directed by Toyin Abraham. The film follows a zealous church usher whose mission to fix the moral failings of everyone around her backfires spectacularly, wreaking havoc on her family and culminating at a wedding introduction that forces a reckoning. Olamide Kidbaby plays a supporting role in this comedic world, and her nomination puts her in a category alongside established veterans.

A social media personality turned actress, Kidbaby has steadily built a following through her content before stepping into film. Her first AMVCA nomination, and it arrives as a genuine statement about how much ground she has covered in a short time.

Bisola Aiyeola — Gingerrr

“Gingerrr” is a mystery-comedy-heist film which follows four childhood friends who reunite and pull off a dangerous heist to claim a box of gold left behind by a deceased dealer, with their alliance tested when hidden agendas begin to surface. Bisola Aiyeola plays Sylvia (Da Silva) — the life of the party who carries her bravado and humour while concealing a terminal illness beneath it. Critics singled her out as the most compelling performance in the film, particularly in scenes where she switches registers from comedy to something far more raw.

Bisola is one of the film’s executive producers alongside her co-stars andhas built a strong presence at the AMVCAs over the years. She received the AMVCA Trailblazer Award in 2018 and has earned multiple acting nominations since, including Best Supporting Actress forPicture Perfect (2018), Best Actress in a Comedy for Sugar Rush) 2020 and Ovy’s Voice (2022), and Best Actress in a Drama for This Lady Called Life (2023)

Funke Akindele — Behind the Scenes

“Behind the Scenes” which became the first Nollywood film to cross the ₦2 billion mark at the West African box office centres on Aderonke Faniran, a successful real estate entrepreneur whose generosity toward family and friends gradually overwhelms her own life. Funke Akindele appears in a supporting role in a film she simultaneously directed — reflecting the complete creative control she brings to everything she touches.

Funke Akindele is the most awarded actress in AMVCA history, having won Best Actress in a Comedy five times across the 2014, 2016, 2017, 2020, and 2022 editions, in addition to wins for Best Actress in a Drama and Best Director at previous editions. Her nomination in the supporting category this year is a different register from her usual lead recognition.

Funke Akindele stars as Aderonke Faniran in the record-breaking Behind the Scenes, the first Nollywood film to surpass ₦2 billion at the West African box office. Photo Credit: Behind The Scenes Movie/Instagram

Sola Sobowale — The Covenant

“The Covenant” is a thriller series which follows a family thrown into chaos when one of their own is kidnapped, drawing them into a network of militant groups and dangerous secrets. Sola Sobowale plays a central figure in that family, bringing the commanding, layered authority that has defined her screen presence across a career spanning over three decades.

Nadia Dutch — Aljana

Set in a remote northern Nigerian village ruled by religious terror, Aljana, a Hausa-language drama, tells the story of a defiant girl who risks everything to save a boy condemned by a community that believes his soul is cursed. Nadia Dutch plays Grace, the character at the heart of that defiance, in a film that sits quite apart from the mainstream of the 2025 Nollywood slate in both its language and its subject matter.

Aljana is also nominated for Best Indigenous Language Film (West Africa) and Best Art Direction at AMVCA 12. This is Nadia Dutch’s first AMVCA nomination, and it comes from a film whose very presence in this category reflects the jury’s willingness to look beyond the obvious.

Amal Umar — The Herd

“The Herd” places two actresses in this category, and while Linda Ejiofor represents the civilian world of the story, Amal Umar’s nomination comes from inside the bandits’ camp. Her character exists on the other side of the film’s central conflict, and critics specifically noted her performance as one of the most nuanced contributions to that world, bringing humanity to a role that could easily have been flattened. The film’s nine AMVCA nominations across acting, directing, writing, and technical categories reflect a production the jury clearly recognised as comprehensively strong.

This is Amal Umar’s first AMVCA acting nomination, and landing in this category in a film tied for the most nominations of the year is a significant way to arrive.

Amal Umar delivers a nuanced performance from within the bandits’ camp in the crime thriller The Herd, directed by Daniel Etim Effiong. Photo Credit: Daniel Etim Effiong/Instagram

Juliebrenda Nyambura — MTV Shuga Mashariki

MTV Shuga “Mashariki” is a Kenyan young adult drama series which follows the lives, relationships, and challenges of young people in Kenya, and earned nominations for Best Writing in a TV Series and Best Score alongside this acting nod. Juliebrenda Nyambura plays Asha, and her nomination in a category dominated almost entirely by Nigerian productions makes this one of the more quietly significant moments of the AMVCA 12 nominations.

Kenya making a rare appearance in the AMVCA acting categories reflects the organisers’ growing ambition to make this a truly continental ceremony. Based on available records, this is Nyambura’s first AMVCA nomination.