Inkblot Production presents, Omoni Oboli (Hankuri Philips), Richard Mofi Admijo (Dimeji Philips) Jide Kosoko (Otunba Odeleye), Shaffi Bello (Senator Akirele), Akin Lewis (Governor Ogundele), Femi Branch (Chudi), Yemi Blaq (Kayode Ajibola), Demilare Kuku (Didi), Evang Taylor (Hankuri Running Mate). Producer/ Director, Omoni Oboli; Director of Photography, Adenkule Nodash Adejuyigbe; Screenplay, Chinaza Onuzu; Executive Producers, Chinaza Onuzu, Zulumoke Oyibo, Damola Ademola. ©2019
There was once an Oscar-Nominated Screenplay and produced on film by George Cukor. He’s one of Hollywood’s most celebrated if you don’t know. The Movie was Adam’s Rib (1949). A funny movie that one. A Couple, Bonner Adam (Spencer Tracy), and Amanda Adams (Katherine Hepburn), both attornies appeared in court; one as a defendant and another as a prosecutor in an attempted murder case. They’ll haggle, fuss and fight each day in court, but come home and sit on the same dinner table. Considering the characters playing Adams Bonner and Amanda Bonner, tell me if that in itself isn’t a laff riot. Love is War, takes on a serious note.
Love is War almost takes a tragic route, yet, the tragedy is averted and therefore ends well. Mr. Dimeji Philips (Richard Mofi Damijo), a medical doctor by trade and his wife, one-time minister of women’s affair, are unwittingly brought into the national gubernatorial election as opponents of each other. Hankuri Philips, PPM, and husband WDP.
Unwitting, I said, because Hankuri never thought of gubernatorial candidacy until Senator Akirele, urges her to represent a state where she’s not hailing from. But her husband’s home and, he is in fact, one of the nobility of Odon state. And when she declares her candidacy, she doesn’t want to play the usual traditional campaign policies like forming a cabinet even before elections and dishing out millions of Nairas to unions in the state. To fight her or stop her, the doyens of the state pit her husband against her. That evening at the dinner table was critical. However, their teenage daughter suggests her father run. Her rationale: If either candidate wins, the family shall still be in the statehouse.
That was sweet to both ears, and they toast to it. But ones, the real politics and the dirtiness of political campaign start, the Philips family are no longer happy campers. The couple eats their dinner in silence; each goes to bed exhausted without saying good night. Otumba Odelaye (Jide Kosoko), who instigates the WDP candidacy of Dimeji Philips, thinks his candidacy is fake because he’s not hitting Hankura, his wife hard on the trail. He must roll up his sleeves and get in the gutter, fight dirty.
As in Adam’s Rib, the media turns the relationship between Philips into a media circus. And that, in turn, put too much weight on the home. Hankuri invites Dimeji to debate, and he accepts. At the face-off, Dimeji almost spills the long-kept beans on his wife:
Demiji, “…this is not the first time my wife has betrayed me for her ambition in…”
Hankuri, “You were going to go there?”
Beat. The auditorium is dead quiet.
Hakuri, “What my husband was going to say, is that I was unfaithful to him. He was going to say I slept with my boss for a promotion. He was going to say all this to burn up our marriage. For a chance to be a governor, he’s ready to say anything to win. What he doesn’t know, my boss raped me.
The audience goes aghast.
Hankuri, “The powers that be making me an offer to drop all charges and have a smooth path. I took the deal. I cried myself to sleep; that husband is standing here today, burning our marriage to the ground.”
She walks off stage.
Hankuri seizes upon the angle that women can understand and relate, and she indeed clinches the tide of her waning support: she appeals to the emotions of womanhood, and wins the election over her husband.
Demiji’s acceptance to reluctantly run against his wife comes from the family dinner before. Their daughter, Didi (Demilare Kuku), urges her father to accept WDP to call the party’s bluff. He soon falls under the political spell of WDP strongman, Otumba Odeleye (Jide Kosoko), who can stop at nothing to stop Hankuri from winning. Same reason he’s the only person arrested when he hires an assassin to attempt on Demiji’s life so he can blame it on Hankuri, and therefore lose the election.
The Hankuri camp had severe political character defects in the candidate. She remains straight-laced. Hankuri refuses to play ball. No bribes to the teachers union, which makes her campaign manager, Kayode Ajibola (Yemi Blaq), almost want to bite himself. You can imagine who introduces her to national politics, Senator Akirele (Shaffi Bello), by the pool.
Senator, “Thanks for coming, Hankuri, We want you to be the next governor of Ondo State.”
Hankuri, “Who’s we?”
Senator, “The national party, the President.
Hankuri, “I’m not even from Ondo State.”
Senator, “Well, your husband is.”
Hankuri, “This is crazy.”
Senator, “No, Hankuri, this is the opportunity. We’ll never have it like this again. So, are you in?”
Her ignorance in the area of politics makes her turn away, Senator Akirele, the kingmaker from the President’s court in Abuja, a lady that, in the first place, persuades her to run. Or, Hankuri refuses to be a Manchurian Candidate for Ondo State. Almost every state leader pledging support to her comes with his list of people he has in mind to work in her future cabinet, and she hates that. “I know the kind of campaign the party wants me to run, and my answer is, no,” she dismisses Senator Akirele.
Governor Ogundele (Akin Lewis) motivation for Hankiri keeps her going by all means. In one of his rare meetings with the candidate, he tickles out of Hankuri her determination to win the race by a subtle test. He invites her late in the night to his lodge and keeps her waiting for almost two hours, and when at last he gives her audience.
Ogundele, “You can go.”
Hankuri, “You kidding me? You woke me up and invited me to your house at 1:30 am, and I have been waiting for two hours, and all you can say is, go?”
Ogundele, “That is why you are losing the election.”
Hankuri, “Excuse me?
Ogundele, “It took you two hours to get angry. You should have been the second you got in here.”
Hankuri, “I was but…respect.”
Ogundele, “You too. Are you not governor-elect? Listen, no one is going to win an election for you. Nobody. You must win the governorship for yourself!
Hankuri, “How do I do that?”
Ogundele, “Figure out.”
Hankuri, “Thank you, sir.”
Ogundele, “Don’t thank me! Win! Win! Win!
Hankuri goes down the stairs with the inspirational meeting and the word, “Win!” in her ear.
She won.