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Studio portrait of Funke Akindele in a white embellished jacket, alone against a grey backdrop
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Toyin Abraham posts TikTok throwback a day after Funke Akindele's Facebook deal

Toyin Abraham shared a TikTok throwback a day after Funke Akindele announced a Facebook partnership for The Four, and fans read it as a reply.

Femi Oluleye3 min read

Fans read the post as a reply to Akindele's Facebook partnership for The Four: No One Fights Alone.

Nollywood actress Toyin Abraham shared a throwback post about TikTok on Instagram on Friday, 30 October 2026, a day after fellow actress Funke Akindele announced a Facebook partnership for her film The Four: No One Fights Alone. Many fans believed the post was a response to Akindele's deal, and the comments split between those who criticised Abraham and those who defended her.

Akindele announced the partnership on Instagram on Thursday. In her post, she wrote: "We're taking The Four to the world, and Facebook is coming with us." Meta, Facebook's parent company, confirmed the deal in its own post, saying that "Facebook is partnering with Funke Akindele for the London and Lagos premieres of her movie 'The Four'". Going by the company's account, the agreement takes in the film's London world premiere and its homecoming premiere in Lagos.

Abraham's caption also looked ahead to Bestie, which is scheduled for cinemas in December 2026:

"It was such a beautiful experience, and I'm looking forward to more amazing collaborations as we gear up for Bestie."

Premium Times fact-checked the post and found that the picture Abraham shared did not come from a collaboration programme. It showed her attending TikTok's #WhatToWatch Cinema Experience on 17 December 2025, an event where filmmakers and creators discussed social media and cinema. Abraham spoke there about using TikTok to promote films.

The reaction was mixed. Akindele's fans and other netizens criticised Abraham and urged her to take the post down, while others backed her. One fan, Mide Love (@mide_finegirl22), wrote: "Babe I'm seeing too much coincidence in trying to copy everything Funke does. First was the Adire for promotion then now she's talking about tiktok collaboration, just when Funke announced her own yesterday." Supporters of both actresses, known as Titans and Jenifans, have kept trading comparisons.

The rivalry is older than this week. Speculation about it reportedly dates back to the early 2010s, and the tension reportedly intensified in 2021, when Akindele's Omo Ghetto: The Saga and Abraham's The Ghost and the Tout Too competed at the box office. Allegations of bias in cinema screenings during 2024 and 2025 remained unsubstantiated.

The premiere of Iyabo Ojo's film The Return of Arinzo on 29 March 2026 is still part of the discussion. A video showed Abraham approaching a table where Akindele sat. Accounts of the clip said Akindele showed no visible reaction to her greeting. Both actresses later unfollowed each other on social media.

As of press time, Premium Times could not independently establish which filmmaker was the first to partner with Facebook on the global promotion of a feature film.

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