Blackberry Madness
Dede One Day (Solo), Uche Ogbodo (Titi), Eva Ezin (Becki), Charles Okocha (Bakar), Ani Amatose (Betta) Michael Godson (Alico), Rachael Okonkwo (Olu), Vitalis Leo (Hillary), Uche Ubah, Uche Nuankwo (Sugar Mummy). Editor, Ikenna John Kennedy Elechi; Director, Ifeanyi Ozodo.
The greatest humanity’s contribution to civilization is the telephone. How far have we come from telegraph, telegram and now telephone? Those were the days when we jumped on bicycles or walked miles away to deliver either message of birth and deaths in faraway villages. Then came in 1876 with liquid telephone and after. Land phones became prevalent all through the world, by the 1900s, except Africa still suffered from such luxuries. Phones came into use in Africa, proper, in the late 1970s and our lives became simpler than before then. As recently as 1990 when the world entered the digital wireless age, the modern man begins a new tech era, and the least village in Africa is not left behind.
The uses of telephones now become broad, frequent and extremely portable. It is no longer for making only calls. It now functions as our wake-up alarms; we store our messages and other information; we track our callbacks; we hold conferences and we take pictures of incidents in real time; we exchange pictures of our loved ones; we set dates with them, convey information, transact businesses, make bank deposits, betray ourselves, digitally meet some unknown friend behind the ocean, all with our blackberries. Blackberry becomes a madness in Nigeria as a forceful emerging business tool in Nigerian society to reckon with among third world African countries. On a Youtube program, “Blackberry Madness in Nigeria”, people across the country, from village farmers to corporate executives tell the essence of their coveted blackberries. Farmers communicate with cities about the current market price of their products; corporate executives check on their shipments across the world; business tycoons abroad check on their families at home; bank transfers, transactions and all other functions that make the lives of modern man easier.
The uses of blackberry that runs into madness in Nigeria far extend beyond your imaginations. In Nigeria, its blessing is a mixed bag. “Blackberry Madness” starts with Solo (Dede One Day) having a hideous dream: He’s wealthy and affluent in this dream. All the neighbors bow down to him as he gets out of his jeep coming towards the camera, a young fellow with a machine gun wasted bullets in him and he wakes up yelling and crying for almost fifteen minutes of screen time.
Solo has a sister, Titi (Uche Ogbodo), a college going girl with a cabal of four or more girls who all lives and breathes blackberry phones. Titi teaches Solo how to use the ‘blackberry phone’, and he goes into business for himself, luring women and underage girls to bed with the promise of buying them blackberry. He gets one pregnant. Solo’s sister and her cabal have other and better uses for blackberry phones. With no rational conversation rather than to lure men to bed for money by ‘pinging’, as they call it, they form a prostitution ring to make money, so they pay their rents, do shopping, pay college tuition, and corrupt low life lecturers at school with bundles of nairas for grades.
“Blackberry Madness” like its sister “GSM Scandal” has no plot, but an array of scenes and talking heads. Solo’s presence in the film (no story, because there’re none) serves more or less as comic relief. His actions and behavior are intended for us to laugh but he isn’t funny. Or he would have tickled us to laugh if the film had nothing to do with the group of prostitute gang of girls. Or there would have been a story if the girls were left alone without involving Solo. There’s no madness in Blackberry Madness.