Daddy’s Girl

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Vin Martin’d production presents, Amanda Ebey, Rev Eddie Cofie, Martha Ankora, Prince Osei Davies, Story, Ubong Bassey, Director of Photography, Frederick Appianing, Associate Producer, Don Fred Donite,  Executive Producer, Elobuike Vitus, Director/Producer, Uboner Bassey.

Most governments in Africa that won independents from colonial masters were torpedoed out of power by military coupes until almost no country was left unscathed. All of a sudden our nations bred the worst kinds of dictators history has yet to write about on the continent. There was Idi Amin, Shiaka Stevens, Eyadema of Togo, Mobutu of Zaire. Halle Mariam, just to mention few. Personally, I’m a victim of such political change. I lost my government scholarship to a military regime in the process. You’ll imagine what that meant to a poor African kid.Then came the gruesome political or better yet, call it a social phenomenon: one tribe, feeling suddenly and seemingly superior to other tribes, because of being in power by military force, meted genocides upon genocide on brothers and sisters.

In their struggle to annihilate opposing tribes, human intestines were in use as checkpoints. They were maiming arms from the shoulder down; legs cut off from the torso or eyes pricked from the sockets of brothers and sisters, pregnant women’s guts were split open and unborn babies gutted out of their mothers and cooked for dinner for their warlords. Here too I lost my only little sister to rebels who raped and killed and left her by the wayside to be eaten up by vultures and crows in death. Excuse me for this aside or digression. In fact name it diatribe. We termed that either tribal wars or civil wars. With me, there’s nothing polite about it.

We are cleaning our political habits with a brand new phenomenon: infights among same legislative party members vying for power, or opposing parties jostling for political power.  A new breed of politicians who can stop at nothing to win elections for their candidates, be it kidnapping member of an opposing candidate, be it blackmailing and whole lot kinds of intrigues.

With the upsurge of younger political aspirants in our countries, we must expect the political campaign movers and shakers to be the young generation. Among the many films that have so far addressed this such topic in our favorite medium is Queen Of Asso Rock, from Nollywood and Daddy’s Girl from Ghallywood. Daddy’s Girl is a harbinger of the political campaign-style yet to come. Of course, there will be skirmishes, and little blood spilled here and there by political and party thugs, but their greatest weapon is the computer.  Digital, the Facebook, the Whatsup, the Emoji, Instagram, and all the apps in the world one could make get to a large crowd to ‘Go Fund You,’ or, ‘Support You.’

We see Fiona (Martha Ankoma) and her friends on the computer working the keyboard for her dad to get elected, as governor.  She is a girl who has hardly graduated from college but single-handedly makes her father, a technocrat by career, and a novice to politics and worst of all unbeknownst to himself elected as a governor of the state. Amazing! How did she do it? She sleeps with the party Chairman, and his Highness, the President. Knowing she has a hold on them by having dirty secrets on each of them, she threatens to blackmail them if her dad is not nominated and sponsored by the party for the forth-coming governor election. At school too, she recruited a group of savvy computer whiz kids, all girls, who ultimately made use of social media to campaign for her dad. Eventually, Fiona’s dad gets selected by the party and elected Governor of the state. But McFord’s problem starts right from the get-go of his time in office.

Deputy Governor wants the Governor to appoint Richmond as a commissioner, as demanded by his daughter who’s in love with Richmond. Richmond has promised Fiona his undying love for her and ready to go to the altar. Fiona believes Richmond’s flattery, and she demands that her dad appoint Richmond commissioner of works, which he does for his beloved daughter. No sooner had Richmond assumed office than got involved in a four million dollars racket involving, Party Chairman and the Deputy Governor. Richmond brings to the governor’s lodge his share of $2 million in Ghana-must-go bag. The Governor demands that Richmond must return the loot to the national coffers. The Party Chair and the Deputy didn’t well receive this, and they come to meet with him and threatens to impeach him if he refuses to play political ball of bribery and corruption with them.

Whenever in a relationship, whatever relationship that is, between two or more people which come down to, “I thought we had an agreement,” surely someone is about to renege. There were lots of promises based on the success of engineer McFord as governor and now that he has the chair, he needs to satisfy his supporters, at least. In politics, one has to satisfy the base that elected you. But McFord has  no base, and all he wants is to run ‘an administration with probity, and no amount of threat will change it.’ The reason he throws the young commissioner with the bag of money out of his house, as he yells at him: “This is appalling. No wonder the commissioner and His Highness wanted me to appoint you…you connive with foreigners to defraud the government…you are all thieves…return that money, and if you don’t…I’ll report you to the Economics and Financial  Crimes Commission.” “Stupid novice!” Alicia calls the Governor for refusing the money. Nobody including Fiona approves of the governor’s ‘prudent and transparent administration.’

The Governor strictly warns Fiona against interfering in the politics of the state. “I don’t want you meddling in the affairs of this government. You are just a daughter, not a member of my administration. “You don’t even know how you ended in that position, ” Fiona retorts. In this obligatory scene, McFord gets to know that his daughter has been behind the mystery of his sudden thrust into political stardom and he gets to know how she slept with the powers-that-be and threatened them with blackmail if they refused her demand, for him to be elected governor.

The party caucus and the entire political establishment are aghast and abashed by the behavior of the new Governor who refuses to play the old game of corruption and bribery. In a heated meeting, the Chairman and the Deputy Governor threaten the Governor with impeachment. He fires back by disclosing to them the dirty secrets he has got on them from his daughter Fiona, and particularly warns his deputy to fall in line, if not, he’ll lose his place in his government.

Now that I have looked at this movie at a political level let me take another look at its romantic plotline. The romantic plot revolves around Richmond. He must not have been the first choice and pick for the role of Richmond in Daddy’s Girl, for he doesn’t look as handsome as some other guys like Gardner and Majid, who’ll leave girls swooning for him in Ghallywood.  I guess in the line of contestants somebody thought they’d seen him in Hoodlum, or Open Secret. You remember when he uses a gang of hoodlums to terrorize the Ghetto in Accra? Or, he acts as a gigolo and pilfers money from his best friend’s mother in Open Secret to sponsor his young wife. These are roles of intrigues.  Here, in Daddy’s Girl, he’s stuck in a love rectangle. The Deputy Governor’s daughter, Karen wants him and wants him to be the assistant commissioner in the new government, badly; Sasha, the daughter of his Highness, wants him for his sex and her pleasure. Fiona, the daughter of the newly elected Governor, wants him because he promises her to walk her to the altar, and she wants him to be the commissioner of work. Alicia, the intending wife-to-be of the governor, plans to marry Richmond, from whom she had got a half-million-dollar loot,  even as she’s hoping to be the First Lady of the Governor.

Fiona catches Richmond red-handed in his car kissing on Alicia.  The Governor arrests Richmond on corruption and bribery charges and sent him to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The governor dismisses Alicia as a two-faced, lying, somebody, ” I thought I knew her, (meaning his daughter), and I thought I could know you,( meaning Alicia),” says the Governor.

When we get past the rhetoric of this movie, beautiful political rhetoric, we come to grip with the believability of some characteristics as well. The locations used in the film must have been necessary to the production because of its cheapness. The Governor’s lodge albeit the fact that he uses his private home, doesn’t match the value of the film. We must have to see Governor in his office where he’ll have to transact government affairs. He, however, seems planted in his home, and even there, he’s between the pool and the side of his house where most dialogue scenes took place. The story didn’t place any weight on the campaign and the victory of Mcford. Most locations do not match the caliber of the story in question. Location, however, questions my believability in the story as real.

Like I said from the start, this movie is a harbinger of the kind of political harangues we’re yet to experience in Africa. Tie your belts it’s going to be a bumpy road to paradise! Daddy’s Girl says it all.

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