Inkblot Productions, presents, Olubankole Wellington (Bassey Otuekong), Ibrahim Suleiman (Sadiq), Rahama Sadau (Maryam), Michelle Dede (Idara Otuekong), Kanayo O. Kanayo (Chief Otuekong), Adesua Etomi (Zainab), Amal Umar (Aisha), Saeed Mallam (Mallam Usman), Sani Muazu (Grand Khadi), Rekiya Attah (Principal Hassan). Director, Tope Oshin; Director of Photography, Pindem Lot/Bishop C. Blunt; Screenplay, Bunmi Ajakaiye/Chinaza Onuzo; Story By, Editi Effiong/ Kelvin Udofia/Damilola Elebe; Producers, Zulomoke Oyibo/ Isioma Osaje/ Editi Effiong; Executive Producers, Editi Effiong/ Uyai Umora Effiong/ Olubankole Wellington/ Chinaza Onuzo/ Zulumoke Oyibo/ Damola Adedamola © 2018.
Mansana incorpore Sano, that is the Latin phrase my headmaster always used when it was about time to go work on his farm, for manual labor. And the whole school of boys and girls would echo the phrase in English, “A Sound Mind in a Sound body!” I remember that phrase too well, with mixed feelings. I crushed my left pinky finger when a wheelbarrow full of manure for Honorable J.E.H Tucker’s piggery rolled back up a steep hill. To this day, I carry the scar of that, “a sound mind in a sound body,” phrase.
Chief Otuekong’s (Kanayo O. Kanayo) son comes from abroad with a whole lot of degrees and laziness. He wants his only son to take over the business of the company but finds not serious enough to take the baton from him. And he couldn’t let him hold an executive position in the company because he doesn’t meet the Nigerian Federal labor guideline. For example, he must get certified by the National Youth Service. And Bassey Otuekong (Olubankole Wellington) isn’t.
The film opens with Bassey at the airport drinking Budweiser and intermittently talking on the phone with a girlfriend in the States, then too, having a ball with friends while his father is home entertaining dignitaries to welcome his son home. Bassey doesn’t care; he doesn’t want to be part of any of this. He wants to have good times, and that’s all. Chief wants him to head the company and marry his partner’s daughter, to seal the partnership. No, Bassey has a fiancé he left in America. Bassey couldn’t even be the head of the company of his father unless he attends NYSC.
To fight Bassey, Chief reduces his credit card allowance to 50,000 Naira, which to him, is a pittance. He’s completely boxed in and has no choice but to go to the camp. Chief’s intent at doing this is to make a man out of Bassey; be a sound mind in a sound body.
Bassey’s experience at the NYSC campus reminds me of my boarding school days. The first-year boys were called ‘greeners’ and were slaves for the ‘seniors.’ We could run in the morning, every five o’clock, before classes started, singing, “We are raw, raw greeners!” It was like a rite of passage. I was puny when I went to the boarding school campus, not that I’ve put on weight after so long, though, but lots of seniors took advantage of me. I made their beds, ran errands for them to the cafeteria, brought their bowls of food from the dining hall to their dormitories, etcetera. Today, I look back on those days with nostalgia and wish for my last son to go through the same. He’s taking similar exercise in the National Guard, though.
When Bassey joins the NYSC, to his father, it was a punishment, and even to Bassey, he feels the father is about to disown him by prescribing such training for him. However, an MIT graduate in Engineering, he is quick to adapt through the help of Sadiq (Ibrahim Suleiman), who hails from Bauchi, where Bassey is taking the training. NYSC quickly breaks Bassey from being a rich Lagos city boy to a universal youth corp.
By the time the training is over, Bassey denies going back to Lagos but stays in Bauchi for the one year of mandatory service. He surprises his father and sister, Idara Otuenkong (Michelle Dede). Bassey, who had been offended and almost kidnapped to get to NYSC campus, now falls in love with Bauchi. He and his friend Sadiq take assignments together as PE teachers at the all-girls school and talks the principal and Maryam the only female mathematics teacher into letting the school take part in State girls’ tournament.
The idea of girls taking part in a sport running tournament in the North is unheard of, but with the help of Maryam, Bassey brings State and National recognition to the Bauchi all-girls school when the school wins, ‘She Runs Bauchi Competition.’ The symbol of Bassey’s success with the girls’ team is proof of his sense of organization and maturity.
Up North has a simple theme: Sound body helps the sound mind. Chief Otuenkong, thinks his son isn’t brave enough to head the company and must have to get certified by the NYSC to be qualified. In Bauchi, Bassey and people like Mallam Usman (Saeed Mallam) on too many occasions almost get into a fistfight because Bassey introduces and even exposes their girls to extra-curricular activities like sport, which Muslim girls don’t do. It is haram.
Now that his father finds his son is grown to be a responsible man, he visits in convoy to his son’s school up North. He is impressed; and promises university scholarships to the students and even sponsors the school. But after Bassey has got the school win the tournament, and comes back to join the father’s company, Chief Otuenkong couldn’t accept him anymore in the company, because Bassey defies him by going back to Bauchi for the tournament. Idara must have told Chief, reason why Bassey didn’t want to marry the father’s partner’s daughter but the widow, Maryam, in Bauchi, a Northerner. I believe Chief wants him to know he doesn’t recognize the woman in Bauchi. Bassey didn’t fuss about it.
The Otuenkong family didn’t half believe they’ll make a man out of Bassey and therefore had to send him to NYSC, and he comes out victorious. However, Chief Otuenkong looks beyond the goodness of his son and only concerns himself about money and the company. The young son, however, looks past company and money but national development of the youth. Mallam Usman didn’t believe his daughter Aisha has talent, but by taking part in the tournament and winning a trophy for her school and gaining national recognition, make the theme of Up North appropriate.
What impresses Bassey to stay up North, impresses me in reviewing this film. Up North can be exotic, beautiful, and picturesque. Up North is like a different world. The royal parade in town, the royal regalia, the colorful uniformed horses, the show of reverence to the Emirs, and the multitude of people that follow the royal train, put so much production value and aesthetic to this movie.
My observation of NYSC comes true in this movie. I was a cross-cultural trainer for the United States Peace Corps, and Bassey and Sadiq’s sense of active community participation reminds me of what we taught peace corps before letting them go out into the African society. If this movie isn’t a propaganda ploy to validate the essence of the federal youth training in Nigeria, I’m impressed by Bassey, Sadiq, and Maryam for organizing a successful peace corps-like project (sports) in Kaffin Madaki school.
And like Bassey deciding to stay in Bauchi, some of the peace corps I trained, choose to stay in the host countries after their assigned time is over. What a better way to introduce a Lagos born and bred to the North, when Bassey had to come back to Bauchi, leaving his father’s business behind in Lagos and stands next to Maryam, her head on his shoulder, in Sadiq’s wedding to Zainab (Adesua Etomi)? Boy, Adesua Etomi is aloof in this movie than she was in Wedding Party Reloaded (2017), when Simon refers to her as, “She is just a fine face.” I still take note of the small face, and a beautiful and immaculate long nose.