FilmOne Entertainment, Toyin Abraham Films Productions present Toyin Abraham (Ashabi), Kunle Remi (Pastor Jide), Olumide Owuru (Young Jide), Adesege Adeniji (Saliu), Lilian Afegbai (Jumoke), Segun Arinze (Chief Makum), Okusanya Lloade (Mary/Sharon) Ganiu Nofiu (Baba Asabi). Director, Adebayo Tijani; Screenplay, Toyin Abraham, Anthony Kahinde Joseph; Cinematography, Idowu Adedapo; Producer, Toyin Abraham, Wingonia Ikpi ©2022
Ijakumo: The Born Again Stripper and Anikulapo, both films of Yoruba heritage, and both produced in the same year, feature Kunle Remi as the lead. The Yoruba definition of Anikulapo means, “one who has captured death and puts it in his pouch.” And Ijakumo means, a jackal. What is Awarun (Sola Sobowale) to Anikulapo is what Ashabi (Toyin Abraham) is to Ijakumo. Women in both films cause his damnation.
If I am going to discuss religious films, I must mention The Man of God (2022) a Netflix-sponsored project, a Bonlale Austen Peters Production. Characteristically, churches yell out “Holy Ghost Fire,” to ward off your wizard mother; a buxom friend from childhood as a goddamn witch, who grinds your good fortunes to a halt; while they steal away congregants’ honest savings in the name of Christ. By that production and now Ijakumo, the highwire disposition of the born-again churches, especially one run by a Syndicate of robbers and barons, have high weaknesses for women. It must be simply because the high priests are created from nowhere to priesthood and greatness by women. And the same women bring their downfalls.
To wit:
Olajide had come from a dust-laden community in the boondocks of Abeokuta. A street preacher who couldn’t feed his obedient and loving wife, Ashabi. Ashabi had a robust community herbalist for a father, Baba Asabi (Goniu Nofiu), but couldn’t listen to his advice against Olajide. He leaves Ashabi’s bloody person dead on the street in Abeokuta, after he poisoned her, while pregnant with the only child her father prophesized she would have. This was twenty years ago, and Olajide believes Ashabi died from the poison he gave her. But Ashabi had asked her father to revenge on Olajide. “Ashabi, if it is not for your mother Aduke, I would have sworn you.” Ashabi soberly said, “I’m ready to fight, I’m ready to revenge. Transfer your power to me.” Baba Asabi, “ Ashabi, there’s power in you.”
Pastor Olajide now has the biggest church in Lagos and Nigeria. Olajide couldn’t accept Chief Ifeanyi’s (Mike Godson) proposal for the young man to engage in the human harvesting trade and allows him to leave Ashabi behind, even as he seems doubtful, but catapults him as a priest to head a church owned by the Lagos Syndicate. Olajide had denied Ashabi’s love because of her stringent Yoruba culture and the tribal marks on her chin. Bright Light, Big City (1988) for Olajide. A boy from the back woods in Abeokuta now rides Rose Royce, cashmere suits, a fleet of cars, and a boat at his beach house. And marries Jumoke (Lilian Afgbai), one of the notable Lagosian socialites.
Ashabi takes a path of vengeance for Olajide. Knowing Olajide through and through, as a man who can fall for sex for sales, she hires Mary/Sharan (Okusanya Lolade), a choir girl in his church who is also a stripper in a nightclub. Not long Pastor Olajide appears there and he wants a special dance from this stripper. Oh, he can’t hold himself. He’s in the heat to make love to this stripper, and by chance, when both he and the stripper could take their masks off, they found out they are the choir girl and her pastor, met in the most unlikely spot. Pastor is already sold to the sumptuous body of the choir girl. The choir girl also had a mission to accomplish––the thumb drive.
The thumb drive holds about 3.5 billion dollars of the Syndicate fund. And Ashabi has infiltrated the account and transferred all the funds to an unknown account. Ashabi is more or less like a Robin Hood thief. She does not want a penny of all these funds. What she wants is the funds to be given back to all church members who have been scammed by the Syndicate. Since Olajide sees Ashabi at the funeral of one of the members of the Syndicate, he is surprised to learn that Ashabi didn’t die anyway twenty years ago. And now she’s his tormentor. And he will do anything to liquidate Ashabi once and for all.
I mentioned at the top of this review, the parts women play in making priests of these “Holy Ghost Fire” churches. Take, for instance, Rekya (Dorcas Shola), in The Man of God, a prostitute, and a drug courier funding Samuel’s (Akah Nnani) church. But the towering prosperity of the church crumbles in the face of the matrimonial problem with Teju (Osas Iahodare) his wife, and his illicit affair with Sister Josephine (Toluwalashe Adeleke) leading to abortion and death. Already Samuel is tired of the glare of light, the attention and glitz that comes with the high-flying churches. He wants to escape to Canada when arrested and jailed and after jail time, goes back to the home he swore never to go back to.
Olajide is not that lucky but suffers at the hands of Ashabi’s wrath, when she declares, “It’s battle time.” In the final scene where Olajide and Ashabi meet, he greets, “e-kaabo. And goodbye.” He wastes some bullets in Ashabi but by the charm embedded in her, all pellets ricochet back to Olajide, killing him. Kunle Remi’s appearances in Anikulapo and Ijakumo are doomed. Writers, Shola Dada (Anikulapo) and Toyin Abraham (Ijakumo) didn’t provide him with redemptions.
In both films, he is portrayed as a womanizer, who lusts after women and who eventually could cause his downfall. I’m not drawing an ugly portrait of Kunle Remi, but the leads he plays in the two films caricature him as a Macbethan character, with imposing height, and intimidating voice (warehouse scene), that would leave one peeing in their pants.
With enormous physical capabilities and an elephantine ambition, see how he takes on the Macbethan pose and action like when Macbeth has realized the death of King Duncan and he suffers from insomnia and insanity. Olajide loses his mind just when Ashabi is closing in on him. He is so disoriented and confused, he points his gun at his younger brother, Wale (Eso Dike).
Olajide after a maniacal laughter, feeling the end is near, “Ah. Oh, shit. Ah, ah, ah. From Uganda? So, it’s Ugandan butt that ruined me.” Olajide laughs some more. “You can’t make me go crazy. I’m not mad. I’m not insane.” (To Sharon ). “You are the one I have sex with at night.” At this point, Olajide is confused between the twins. Mary, the Choir girl, and Sharon the Stripper. Eventually, he meets his fate in the hands of Ashabi.––Like his mangled body on the dusty road in Anikulapo, he falls to his death in an old warehouse. I hope his next movie will end gloriously.