By Kesandu Egburonu
The movie, ‘Gangs of Lagos,’ was written by Jade Osiberu, a writer who, in recent times, has seen her stock on the rise, especially after, also, writing the movie, ‘Brotherhood.’ Oh! I’ve seen ‘Brotherhood’ and trust me, it was splendid from start to finish. I can’t even count how many times I’ve re-seen it since then! Bar one or two not so major mistakes, it definitely ticked all the boxes for me and made me give Jade a big thumbs up.
Not until I got wind that the Lagos state government kicked against ‘Gangs of Lagos’ and even threatened to ban the movie did I go the extra mile to purchase it just to know what the fuss was all about that would draw the ire of a state government. Within 3 minutes of viewing the movie, I realised the giant error Jade had made in this movie to invoke all the brouhaha.
For starters, how dare anyone say that the ‘Eyo’–the revered masquerades of the Yoruba tribe is the “first gang in Lagos.” That was exactly what the voice-over spilled in the very beginning of the film! My, oh my! I couldn’t believe my ears. Though not a Yoruba man by origin, I was born and brought up in Lagos state, speak the Yoruba language and know a whole lot more about its traditions than many Yorubas I know. I, along with many of my peers, learned about the revered Eyo while in primary and secondary school and for anyone to even refer to them in that light really broke my heart.
For emphasis, the dictionary meaning of “gang” means, “an organised group of criminals.” Now you see how alarmed I was by merely hearing those words about Eyo. I can only imagine how it felt to the original Yorubas hearing those words. It was not just a slight on the Eyo, but a big indictment on the Yoruba culture and tradition as a whole.
I thought I had seen and heard it all, only for the film to give me a huge shocker when, 5 minutes later, an Eyo actually walked into the house of Obalola, greeted, pulled out a gun from within his white masquerade attire and shoot dead a character—Obalola’s dad! By now, I was mesmerised—not by any kind of literary genius oR master storytelling, but by the sheer disregard of Yoruba culture and the abomination I was seeing on display! “Oh my God!” was all I could mutter at that stage.
Now, was this some kind of elaborate way of Jade announcing her writing prowess that she had to go to this despicable length just to project our Nigerian culture in this manner to the world? Did he have to fart on everything we hold dear all in a desperate attempt to shoot a movie that will spark controversy and attract an audience as a result. That was so low for me. I shook my head in despair and understood why the government was making such a fuss about it. This abomination is definitely worth any fuss made.
Let’s move on to dissecting the actual plot of this movie everyone wants us to believe is wow! I admit, the plot was thick and I appreciated Jade for that, but, what I couldn’t wrap my head around was her actual storytelling which left a lot to be desired. Trust me when I say I am a big movie freak. I’ve seen them all, critiqued them all and applauded a lot of them. In my experience, stories with thick plots tend to elaborate on other major characters as well as a few minor characters and I’ll give you examples.
Take ‘King of Boys,’ for instance, another Nigerian movie that hit national acclaim. Look at the Season 2 and see how characters such as ‘Odudubariba’; ‘Makanaki’;‘Odogwu Malay’ and; ‘Dapo Banjo’ (the Journalist) all saw their characters highlighted in resonance with the main character, ‘Eniola Badmus.’ In movie writing, the stories of these major characters and the minor ones, if threaded properly, will gang up to form an independent piece of dependent bodies. It’s what separates the great movies from the not so great ones. This was obviously lacking in ‘Gangs of Lagos.’
Another aspect of the movie was the message they were trying to pass across. In ‘Kings of Boys,’ ‘Brotherhood,’ and ‘Living in Bondage: Breaking Free,’ the messages from them were quite clear. In ‘Gangs of Lagos,’ however, the message was ambiguous, if not hypocritical at some point.
Let’s take the character, ‘Bamidele,’ for instance, who was running for the office of Lagos state Governor. Now, her campaign was based on the premise of breaking away from the criminal norm in the state that saw violence, bloodshed, Godfather-ism, while overseeing a return to the way a proper Eko (Lagos) is supposed to be. All well and good. I lauded that philosophy up until the point where I saw her associating with the character, ‘London’– a criminal element involved in prostitution, racketeering and every conceivable evil vice imaginable. I asked myself if this was the fellow who wanted to return Eko back to its glory days. To further disgust me, after the character ‘Obiloba’ was done murdering many and shooting himself up the ladder, this same politician, who had now won the election, came to pay obeisance to him—a Gang leader! What? Are you kidding me?
This led me to ask: For the Governor to have stooped so low to come pay her respects to him after the bloody bloodbath he orchestrated, does that mean ‘Obiloba’ was now the Head of the hierarchy? Where does that leave ‘Ekun’ and a few others? Did they merely step aside and announce their retirement or what exactly? We all know everyone loves the top throne, so I’m curious for Jade to explain to us how that played out.
Another very foggy part of the film was when Obalola’s dad was gunned down by the Eyo. His mother was right there screaming. Obalola was still a baby in the cradle. Obalolo grew to about 13 years of age when his character evolved. It is important to note that his mother, then, was different from his mother 13 or so years later (played by Iyabo Ojo). Also, both characters are about the same age, which means Obalola’s mom somehow defied age for 13 plus years and remained the same. That’s astonishing!
If I am permitted to go on and on about this film, I’ll find myself writing a documentary on this one! To the regular man out there who doesn’t have a keen eye for movies, spotting all these might have easily eluded him/her, but for a movie freak like myself that pays attention to details, seeing all these raised an automatic red flag for me and made me rate the movie very poorly.
This is not, in any way, an attempt to undermine the movie or its writer, but an attempt to analyse and critically examine this piece and rate it accordingly. In this instance, I will refuse to be economical with the truth and will simply call a “spade” a “spade.” Jade Osiberu owes everyone an apology for this screenplay she put out: The apology must be tendered to the entire Yoruba race; movie intellectuals; and the general viewers at large.Its a No-No for me.
