WE TOUCH THE UNTOUCHABLE!

For people like me, watching Nollywood movies has always been something I have always been quite reluctant to do. I know this does not sit well with the fact that I am a Nigerian living in Nigeria. I should always support where I’m from, right? But, most of us are aware of how Nollywood movies used to just drastically reduce a person’s IQ.

I used to watch a lot of these movies when I was very young. They used to make me laugh a lot, but that was then. I realised that these movies were not quite entertaining after a while, so I switched to watching Hollywood and Bollywood movies, and trust me, you will not only laugh but also learn a few things, ranging from how to impress your crush to how to face that ghost that haunts you in your dreams.

But, over the years, there have been some produced Nollywood movies and TV shows that have been quite impressive, from the screenplay to the cast to the costume design, even down to the locations used for shooting. I started watching again after I realised that it was getting better, but I will say, amongst all the good and sensible Nollywood movies I have watched, ranging from Quams Money to Alakada to Elevator Baby to about ten others, I will gallantly hit my chest to say that Omo Ghetto (The Saga) is my number one movie. I probably shouldn’t be saying this because we still have King of Boys 2 killing it right now; but for the sake of this piece, let’s just dive in.

The writer and producer of this beautifully directed movie, Funke Akindele-Bello, murdered the screenplay, and then she went ahead to pick the best actors to play the characters in her script. I don’t think any other actor would have killed the role of Lefty, Olori Askamaya Bees, other than herself.

I remember when I watched the first part of Omo Ghetto, Netflix was not available in Nigeria then, so we just had to figure out ways to watch movies, I always kept wondering how she could play the roles of Shalewa and Ayomide without flaws, but she did and it was outstanding.

The truth is that every human being always has two sides: the craze side and the ajebutter side. It’s just that for most people, one of the sides is always so predominant. I became a die-hard fan of Funke Akindele-Bello after watching that movie about 9 years ago, I am still a diehard fan.

I am very certain that she handpicked her actors, from chummy Choko played by the one and only Chioma Chukwuma Akpotha to Busty, the one that can not come and kill herself, to Nikki, to the Osho free babes. I don’t think there could have been better actors to play the area boys, oh sorry, the area girls’ parts. They murdered every scene.

Although one character in the movie that didn’t impress me was Baba Oni Baba. He was quite active in the first part of the movie. People feared his name and couldn’t talk back whenever he was talking, but then Femi Stone and his friends did not even move after he threatened them in the kidnap scene. I didn’t feel that part; there should have been something like them scared shitless of baba oni baba, but then I am not the scriptwriter, just a viewer and critic.

Apart from that scene, everything was just so superb! From the party guests getting so stoned that one of them even went to give Baba Shina Peters free booty dance to the woman that was flinging her busts everywhere, I laughed my lungs out, scared that I was probably going to get a query at work for laughing that hard (yes, I was watching it at work, but obviously with my handsfree.) The part where the area boys and area girls were about to fight then the leader of the area boys, Tambolo played by Martins feelz, tore his skin with the bottle he broke on his head, I almost screamed; the fight scenes felt so real, I won’t be shocked if Chuummy Choko was truly thrown to the floor.

One character that made me laugh whenever he was on was Mario, the one and only junkie of Askamaya kingdom, he couldn’t do anything until he was on cloud 9, and that’s the reality of most addicts. They don’t know how to do anything until they are okay.

Mrs Funke Akindele-Bello is someone I admire because she is not afraid to write true scenes, exactly as they are in Nigeria. We all know that we have corrupt officers everywhere in Nigeria, and what’s a yahoo-boy or agbero movie without one police officer who is always ready to collect bribes? We need more movies or TV shows that would represent what we go through in Nigeria so that we can shove it into their faces and they can see that we already know what they do (you already know who I’m referring to.)

I don’t want to ruin the movie for those who haven’t seen it yet, even though I feel like I have. Anyway, if you have not watched Omo Ghetto the Saga, then you should right now.

Happen! Sele! Askamaya bees! We sting the unstingable, and we chook the unchookable.