Raj Films and Heroes Production presents, (Adesuwa) Okawa Shaznay, Okoti (Austin Enabulele), Sophia (Shan George), Eno (Precious Udoh), Inspector Ali (Charles Onun). Story by Frank Raja Arase; Screenplay, Kahende Joseph; Cinematographer, Austin Naolie; Production Manager, Orok Etim; Associate Producer, Victor Inyang; Producers, Frank Raja Arase /Kwame Boadu; Executive Producers, Raj & Heroes Films; Director, Frank Raja Arase. © 2017.
In My Country, what a country with such roughness! West Central is the roughest part of this nation where all bets on life are off. Where all underage kids who can barely carry twenty pounds bag of rice, tote high powered guns for toys. They live in undercellars and basements of unfinished buildings from where they crawl out and waylay rich people for money and food. We are talking about a country and a city where the streets have no name. They have alleys of about three feet wide and runs as long as half a mile to the thoroughfare.
You may have had the opportunity to watch Hoodlum (2011). This story here quadruples the size and intensity of Hoodlum. In My Country, the hoodlums spill blood for fun, and their adventures always get national government’s attention. An innocent boyfriend, Remi (Noble Emmanuel) of Adesuwa (Okawa Shaznay) who she met at the National Youth training, and gets her pregnant, follows her into the West Central hood, to meet with her family and to report himself. Adesuwa is hailing from this hood, and she’s, revered because her younger brother, Okoti (Austin Enabulele), is the leader of all the hood-rats and can command them to pull heists of his choosing.
Adesuwa and her clean-cut boyfriend happen upon a heist her younger brother pulls, and the only son of the Police Captain kills when he kills one of Okoti’s posse. The city, the police, and the military force come down on the hood. It is anarchy. Residents get killed indiscriminately, and Adesuwa loses her brother and her boyfriend, Remi, in the invasion.
Adesuwa has no choice but to take up the pieces from there and goes into teaching. She goes to work and care for little Eno, now eight years, who promises to excel in life like Mandela. One day she rescues a thief from the law. Then on another day, Old Soldier (Sam Dede) pays her visit. For that show of kindness to the thief she saved from the police the other day, he promises to be there for Adesuwa, especially when her younger brother Okiti, was a kid he had personally brought up in the hood. Remember, in such an environment as West Central, and one hardly knows their birth parents. Bastards, dead parents, and orphans, family accept them. No questions asked.
Then Adesuwa is whisked out of class one day because Eno passed out in her school and rushed to the hospital. Her life changes this day. The cost of medical attention and the prognosis from the hospital is over Adesuwa’s head. She could pay the humongous amount of money for transplant to spend millions of dollars on it. She can’t afford the medical bill, and no bank and even her school where she teaches can provide to help her. Her daughter is wasting away in the hospital. As a last-ditch effort and against her will, she goes back into the hood and asks Old Soldier’s help. Old Soldier kidnaps the Minister of Health: Kidnappers need no money, no diamonds, but immediate medical attention for Eno.
The issue of Eno turns a national slipper; everyone was wearing it. The media jump on it; celebrities take sides for Eno. I even hear my man Desmond Elliot Comments and urges: and comment on it, market women jump on it. It becomes a national debate and an interesting one too. On the side of the government, they find that Adesuwa is in this with the kidnappers. Police call her in for questioning and released. At home, something about the name of the dead boyfriend, Eno’s father reminds her. She rushes to Old Soldier, discloses to him that the kidnapped Minister of Health, is the grandfather of Eno. When the Minister gets to know, he quickly arranges for Eno to be transferred by air to Lagos Hospital.
Eno goes into convulsion on their way to the airport. Her mother keeps yelling, “Don’t die,” on the phone to Old Soldier. Assuming that all is lost, Old Soldier shoots the Minister as he had vowed to do if Eno dies. Eno, however, survived.
In My Country is like one big household. In My Country, life, as I said so earlier, is, one hardly knows each other or how connected they all are because promiscuity and prostitution are rampant. We are to find out later that the story which starts with Eno has a deeper root in the general household of In My Country. The Minister of Health and his wife, who at a certain point in the story give Adesuwa six hours to produce her husband, happens to be talking to the mother of her granddaughter, the Minister of Health, who refuses to provide help for Eno is the grandfather of her. Adesuwa and her brother Okiti both born in the slums of West Central, are the children of Old Soldier. Categorically then, Old Soldier and the Minister of Health, in his holding, are grandparents of Eno.
The subject matter discussed in this movie is a real occurrence in third world countries. I watched Temple of Justice (2008), Prison Break (2013), which both call for community input and response for the justice of the common man, but no such opportunity. The commentary scenes of, “Let’s Save the child,” campaign by celebrities, and government officials, threatening kidnappers, and common market women holding placards, “The poor deserve good health care too,” opens a national debate. Juliet Ibrahim, comments, “Do not put the sins of the mother on the child, so let’s save the child.”
In a moment of truth, Minister of Health, Bankole and his kidnapper, Old Soldier, divulged into Adam Smith’s philosophical diatribe, on poverty, scarcity, and opportunity cost. The Minister on the side of the rich against the poor Old Soldier.
Minister of Health, “The real tragedy of the poor is the very…”
Old Soldier, “…poverty of their aspirations. We all read Adam Smith now. Look at these men, these children, unless the government creates an enabling environment for them to expose their talents to stand out, to fight back, you have no right to refer to them as lazy. You could have saved the life of that innocent girl…you are even willing to die. That innocent small girl that needs your help is your blood.”