Rightangle Productions presents Olu Jacobs (Timpiri), Richard Mofi Damijo (Gunpowder), William R. Moses (Powell), Taiwo Ajai Lycett (Ibiere), Ivie Okujaye (Chisom), Bradley Gordon (Dobra), Ifeanyi Williams (Boname), Dayton Sinkia (Azu), Michael Walker (Rex Sheen). Director, Curtis Graham; Producer, Rogers Ofime; Executive Producer, Oge Neliaku; Writer, Samantha Iwowo. © 2016
Oloibiri is a vigilante justice against the Nigerian Government and the oil corporates stealing their natural resources with no equal reward. Oloibiri isn’t about hostage and ransom crises like we experienced in the Silverton Seige (2022); Silverton Seige is, to a large extent, like Al Pacino’s Dog Day Afternoon (1975). It takes place in the middle of the sprawling city of Pretoria. Where young Soweto youths (dubbed Silverton Trio) starred by Thabo Rametsi, run amok in the bank. Theirs was a saboteur gang against the Apartheid South African regime. Unintended siege but Intense.
Oloibiri is a story about a splinter group of Delta State Nigerian youths turning against oil exploration in their area with no benefit in return. The region is devastated by cancerous oil agents spilled into their fishing rivers and drinking waters, and almost all the villagers are dying from it. The Government and its agents, politicians, and the world communities aren’t looking at the demise of the inhabitants.
You may wonder why a trained Nigerian Geologist, now dubbed, Gunpowder (Richard Mofi Dimajo), from Oloibiri, with a lucrative paycheck, turns his back. He goes into the bushes to fight and sabotage the operation of oil companies. He and his mother have this conversation when he gives him correspondence from his former company. “For two years, a multinational oil company begs a former employee to return to a job he dumped. And he arrogantly refuses?” Who put this curse on you, Boma?” His mother passes him the letter from LESH Petroleum: “I opened it.”
The mother coughs vigorously.
Gunpowder, “Mama, are you still drinking from the river?”
Mama, “The poison is not only in the river.”
“And you want me to make money from the same company, the same company that is killing Oloibiri’s children?”
“The next time you take another life, I will curse you. What happened to my boy, who made first class in Geology. What happened to him?”
Gunpowder whispers, “He died.”
He is fighting for his people against the Government and foreign corporations, but there is one obstacle. Timpiri (Olu Jacobs), the elder in his community, stands in the way. I have never used four or five consonants at any time to describe any character in my review. However, this time, I will describe the nature of young Timpiri as pusillanimous. He had been in the community when LESH oil exploration started. But was spineless, timid, and lacked the courage to stand to the Whiteman and the Government. He left for abroad. When he came back and saw the devastation meted on his community, including oil spillage, cancer infections, and the death of his people, he was heartbroken. He regrets having abandoned his folks.
The most radical and dangerous crop of character River State could give birth. The vacuum Timpiri created when he went abroad is the one filled with Gunpowder. We remember his famous lines in Zero Hour (2020) when he plays the villain: “I am doing this to sustain your legacy, our family legacy.” In Zero Hour, he wants to illegally own the Devou family conglomerate by killing all immediate heirs to the fortune. In Oloibiri, Gunpowder becomes a renegade vigilante warlord and lives in the jungle with his rag-tag junta of killers who make money through ransoms, on who he generously lavishes the money.
The Government and politicians want him dead for disrupting their corrupt practices at the expense of the natives. In a corporate and shareholders meeting, Powell toasts Forshaw Exploration, projected to gross $300 million. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, the adventure has just begun!” Yes, it indeed has. Gunpowder and his vigilantes ambush Robert Powell on a country road, even as he narrowly escapes and temporarily seeks refuge in Elder Timpiri’s house. While at it in Nigeria, Azu and his partners hold all Foreshaw executives in Houston as captives and wait for orders from Gunpowder.
It becomes a war between vigilante Gunpowder versus the Nigerian Government, politicians, and Foreshaw Exploration. Just as the Government will not tolerate the lousy hostage image, the Government and politicians must ensure Powell is safe and that Gunpowder and his gang are obliterated. To Gunpowder, the Foreshaw Exploration should pay for the damage and reparations of the devastations in their region. Timpiri, being timid since his youth and even now, doesn’t want Gunpowder and his gang’s continued violence in the community. At one point, he dismisses Gunpowder as an “animal.”
Gunpowder finds Robert Powell in the company of Chisom (Ivie Okujaye) and Elder Timpiri volunteering to take a bullet from him. “No, Oldman, my bullet will not end your pains. I’m the product of your lousy generation. You are better off alive to see Oloibiri of your designs. I heard you wept when you came back here in 1978 and saw the rust that was Oloibiri’s hell. I heard you also now seek psychiatric help for your misery over the LESH oil spill.”
Azu and his gang of spies in Houston are collected and interrogated by the FBI. Meanwhile, the Nigerian army carries out a scotch-earth attack on Gunpowder to rescue Robert Powell and Elder Timpiri. Gunpowder, like Colonel Kurtz, didn’t survive the attack. He died like a man with bullet holes buried under gallons of crude oil.
The only past film Oloibiri could recall is Apocalypse Now (1979). Marlon Brando (Colonel Kurtz), the United States Special Forces Colonel, goes rogue in the jungle of Vietnam. He decides to stay away from civilization and lives his life in the wilderness of Vietnam jungle. And the US Special Forces under the Command of Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) are sent after him. The idea of bringing Apocalypse Now into this review is that the behavior of our antagonist, Gunpowder in Oloibiri, in so many ways, resembles Colonel Kurtz.
Between young Gunpowder and Elder Timpiri, one could take sides with Gunpowder only for the violent nature of his movement. Something Timpiri thought couldn’t achieve by violence. We discover that Robert Powell has had a change of mind to improve the welfare of the people in the region. See how he invites his office boy to come to lunch with him. Yet, Gunpowder is hot-headed and has seen his mother coughs so vigorously. She will leave him any time now, like every mother and father in the communities.