Many, many months, not too long ago, America called and I obeyed via New York. I settled into my seat and it didn’t take long before the identity of my neighour on the flight registered. Hard as the dim lighting tried to deceive me, I knew sitting right beside me was Nollywood star Femi Adebayo, the most popular of the children of veteran actor Adebayo Salami, who was a major part of the childhood of my generation. After some minutes of keeping to each other, we eventually struck conversations and typical of Nigerians on their away abroad, our country was a major point of discussion and we concurred that Nigerians deserved better than they were getting. Staying abroad, in our view, was a final act of desperation for many.
At the time, Femi Adebayo was yet to release Agesinkole (King of Thieves), which made hundreds of millions at the cinema and now streams on Amazon Prime.
In the last few days, Femi has been the subject of discussions in not just Nigeria, but in many countries of the world, where his latest movie, a Netflix Original, occupies Top Ten spot. It is a movie rich in poetry; poetry which, unfortunately, the English language is damn handicapped to capture. The best way to enjoy this poetry is to see the original Yoruba version. The rhythm and the rhyme of the dialogue between the actors are surreal. In the English dub, you can feel the poetry but you can’t touch it! The subtitling delivers the message but the beauty of it, the word play and all, are too heavy for English language to deal with.
It is a movie that showcases the Yoruba language in its complexity and beauty. One word, for instance, can mean different things depending on pronunciation. A word like ogun can mean war, can mean charm and can mean something else. This is the sort of dilemma English language is thrown in this movie’s dub and its translation, which just tell us the meanings of the words and unable to show us the nuances.
This is a movie about our world, filled with leaders whose legitimacy is not supported by the people they rule. These tyrants bought their thrones and to keep these thrones, they continue to pay mercenaries to subdue the people.
In this movie, which Femi Adebayo produced, and Tope Adebayo, his younger brother, and the African Academy Awards (AMAA) winner, Adebayo Tijani of the Apesin fame, co-directed, we meet the sort of the power behind the thrones. His name is Ogundiji, a man who loves himself so much that no one is too big or too precious to be sacrificed for his interests. He manipulates the men under him, sets them against one another, and envies the ones with talents. His arrogance is the size of the Atlantic Ocean, and his carriage gives the impression he is eledumare’s focal person on earth. He is simply annoying.
There are many leaders, kings and regents in the world represented in this movie. These men and women, disappointedly, get their thrones not on merit. They are usurpers in powers and for them to keep their hold on their stolen mandates, Ogundiji, the warrior, is at their service. They pay him to find their enemies.
To maintain his hold on the business of keeping these bad men and women in power, Ogundiji runs a school for warriors. A new set of students arrive and one of them is Gbotija, a young man who comes from a land where the people have a pact with trees and as such can control anything made of wood.
Within a short period of joining the school, Gbotija’s prowess, like brilliance, shows but instead of Ogundiji to be happy, he is sad. One of the kings he is helping to keep in power advises him to get rid of Gbotija before he overthrows him and become the new warrior. The devil called Ogundiji decides to test the new kid on the bloc. The first test is for Gbotija to fight Gbogunmi, Ogundiji’s second-in-command, whose exploits are known far and beyond. To the discerning, Ogundiji just wants Gbotija dead and has chosen Gbogunmi as the boat to paddle him across to the other world. Gbogunmi, who has come to see Gbotija as his son, feels bad about the arrangement, but is reluctant to say no to Ogundiji, who is still angry with him for failing to wage war against his mother-in-law’s village. Left to him, he, unlike Okonkwo of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, doesn’t want to have anything to do with the death of the boy who calls him father. The fight holds and what happens is contrary to the expectation: Gbotija triumphs.
A dissatisfied Ogundiji announces a second test; Gbotija is to stay inside a coffin for seven days without food and water, a development, which tears apart Iroyinogunkitan, Ogundiji’s supposed only child, who is in love with the young warrior. The pact between him and trees saves him from dying in the coffin, not even when Ogundiji gets his trainees to dump the coffin inside the sea. The wood gives way and Gbotija returns to the applause of his mates.
Ogundiji digs into his pocket of mischief once more and, this time around, orders Gbotija to wage war on the town of Aje. He gives him only four men to accomplish this task. Like the tests before, the Heavens come to his rescue.
What happens next are major revelations I didn’t see coming. The plot twist is superb.
Tijani, who wrote the screenplay, has proven over the years to know his onions. This past recipient of the AMAA award for best director of an indigenous movie delivers a rousing script and as the co-director, he delivers it on the screen.
Femi, as Ogundiji, Abdulateef Adedimeji as Gbotija, and Ibukunmi Oluwasina as Iroyinogunkitan, deliver amazing performances. One day, I will write about Adedimeji, this dude who once appeared to me was Odunlade Adekola wannabe. He has come full circle and has carved his own path. As Ndike, he is good. As Iya Peju, he is hilarious. As Ayinla Omowura and Bola Tinubu in biopic, he embodies these personalities. One day, I will write about him.
Aside these leads, the relatively new faces and veterans in the movie such as Salami, Ifayemi Elebuibon, Yinka Quadri, Fathia Balogun, Odunlade Adekola (even with just a one-scene cameo) and Muyiwa Ademola, help drive the plot in this period production, which will be talked about for a long time. I suspect a series version of it is in the offing given the suspense introduced in the last scene with the cameo from the brilliant Ibrahim Chatta. This will be following the tradition of Anikulapo, another brilliant Netflix Original from Kunle Afolayan, who is family friend with Femi Adebayo.
My final take: If you get power cunningly, and sustain your reign cunningly, time will eventually show you as the cheat you are, and it may even slam some sanctions on you or just leave you to die of guilt.
