Gangs of Lagos is a 2 hour Jade Osiberu movie with Tobi Bakare as Obalola, Adesuwa Etomi as Gift, and Chike as Ify or Ifeanyi, as its lead actors. Gangs of Lagos premiered on Amazon Prime Video. This movie may arguably provide the successful entrance Amazon wanted into the Nigerian cinematic industry.
The movie starts with a younger version of Ify trying to rob a woman with a knife to her neck in the usual traffic of Isale-Eko. Ifeanyi isn’t the bold type so the woman slaps him off her vehicle but Obalola isn’t shy. He goes to the other side of the car where the woman’s daughter is and requests for the same bag with his knife to the child’s neck. Forced, the woman releases the bag. The kids reunited with the younger version of Gift, celebrates their fortune but not without Ifeanyi’s conscience pricking him which convince the others that they keep the woman’s passport.
Typically in any rough or crime-infested inner cities, if you had your stuff stolen, you didn’t need to panic a lot. You just need to see the leader of the area and you’d be fine. You’d get your stuff back. The leader who is called Eleniyan ( Owner of Men in Yoruba) is one who built his way up through the ranks as a thug and mercenary.
Born in Lagos and growing up in the Western part of Nigeria, I can totally relate to everything that transpired here. Boys saw a bright future being thugs than being in the classroom. They’d rather collect taxes from traders and artisans in the name of a ridiculous organization. I’ve particularly observed one in Isale-Oko’s garage, Ogun State among drivers. You have the Road Transport blah-blah association of Nigeria, You also have the National Union of Road Transport workers, then you also have Riders and Motorist Organisation just to name a few. As a driver or bike rider, you had to pay some form of taxes to these organisations, and trust me, these taxes were not cheap.
Traders are then disturbed by the Town Planning Association, Waste Management and everything including thugs who come in the name of protection for their own taxes. While it is true that they protect those who pay their dues, it’s foolish to neglect that many have been made fatherless, motherless or childless when debt in taxes arises.
This is basically the way money is made in the inner city. You steal big time or small time. You push drugs through students, you collect illegal taxes and the Eleniyan watched everything while pretending to be a good person meanwhile, whatever your ‘trade or raid’ was you gave him a percentage of what you earned. The biggie time for everyone comes when it’s election time and politicians pay handsomely for their thuggery service.
Moving back to the movie, the woman visits the Eleniyan and Obalola is called. He makes a rather interesting comment which seems to put him out as smart in the evil trade. While he is being told, that he has to return the bag to the woman because omo aye kin j’oju aye ( you don’t betray or bring harm to your own), he tells Eleniyan that the woman has reported the stolen bag case to the police.
The Eleniyan lets Obalola go with the bag. Dismissing the woman, he tells her ‘The police you went to, they’d be the ones to get you your bag’
We see later that that was an accurate guess because Obalola didn’t see her get into a police station but he had deduced that it took her a longer time to report to Eleniyan. He tells this to Ninalowo who convinces him to return the bag to the woman. He tells Obalola where to find him and the conversation is soon interrupted by Obalola’s mother who takes him away from the Ninalowo to aggressive prayer warriors who pray for him while beating him with brooms.
The movie proceeds with Obalola running away from home to be Ninalowo’s son. Ninalowo sends him to school instead of exposing him to their dirty life. But things soon spiral out of place in the movie with Ninalowo’s death leading to a gang fight that led many young people dead or maimed for life.
The movie is packed with edge-cutting suspense and a full-action thriller. It is one that if you don’t understand Yoruba, ‘life has cheated you 1-0’😂 The movie is beautiful with its special use of Yoruba secular slang. Being in Eastern Nigeria now, I can’t but say it does bring a deja vu feeling as those slangs were entirely relatable and mistranslated in the subtitles provided.
All in all, it’s still a beautiful movie.
One wouldn’t expect Chike, Zlatan Ibile and Wasiu Pasuma to have pulled such beautiful performances. They pushed life into their roles. Adesuwa Etomi-Wellington is usually a baddie when it comes to roles like this, as well as Tobi Bakare.
After watching Gangs of Lagos, Now I don’t blame Naira Marley for his song Koleyewon (They would not understand)
Truly, it’s now I just understood.
In his lyrics, (F-word Edited lyrics)
T′oba foh, o ti ‘f’ up (If you get scared, you’ve messed up)
T′oba ‘f’ up, o ti sh’aye (If you mess up, you’ve offended the world.)
Kilo kan aye ( What concerns the world)
O j’oju aye, o tun fe j′aye ( It translates to You betrayed life; the world and you want to enjoy life)
O lon f’ pelu street ( You are messing with the street)
Shori street, lo ma f’ e up (You see the streets, they’d mess you up)
Awon girls lo ma set e up (The girls would set you up)
Awon boys lo ma ‘f’ e up ( The boys would then mess you up)
This was entirely all that happened in the latter part of the movie. Betrayal and its unforgiving consequences.
The street isn’t entirely loyal but the Gang is. Omo aye kin j’oju aye.
Young Vibe 