By Ishaya Ibrahim
In a newly released movie, Gangs of Lagos, actress and movie producer, Toyin Abraham, played a role critical against Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s hegemony of Lagos in the last 20 years.
Abraham had before the presidential election, said she would vote for Tinubu because she loves him.
“Tinubu has been a wonderful man to my people, and I love Asiwaju,” she had said in January this year.
But in the movie, Gangs of Lagos, released last week, which elicited a strong reaction from the Lagos State Government, Abraham played the role of a revolutionary politician who seeks to dislodge a family that has held Lagos in a choke-hold since 1999.
In the movie, she told a reporter: “Is it right that a family will hold a whole state hostage for the past 20 years? And they keep using our children for political thuggery. Why wouldn’t they use their children? They have kept their children abroad.
“They keep transferring public funds into their own personal account.”
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Tinubu’s name is not mentioned in the movie, nor the party he birthed, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), which later merged with others to form the All Progressives Congress (APC). But the innuendos pointed in his direction since he has been the political godfather of Lagos since 1999. His daughter, Folashade Tinubu, is the head of Lagos markets, while his son, Seyi Tinubu, is in charge of all billboard adverts, both electronic and non-electronic.
A chieftain of the Labour Party in Lagos State, Babatunde Olalere Gbadamosi, tweeted about Abraham’s role in the Gangs of Lagos: “It is fitting that this particular actress was cast in THIS particular role and given that particular line. Super satisfying!”
Another tweet from @DrOlugbile pointed out: “Hmnnn.. Just thinking about her role in the movie via-a-vis her role in the election. What if she deliberately chose to align with BAT for the election as a cover to avoid offending the powers that be when the movie is released? Thank God, a Yoruba actress played that role!!”
@silantene said: “Chai, the people she is talking about are the same people she is supporting like her life depends on it. Wow!!!”
But the Lagos State Government, through a statement by the Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mrs Uzamat Akinbile-Yussuf said the Ministry, being the regulatory body and custodian of the culture of Lagos State, viewed the film/series as a mockery of the Heritage of Lagos.
According to Akinbile-Yussuf, “We are of the opinion that the production of the film ‘The Gangs of Lagos’ is very unprofessional and misleading while its content is derogatory of our culture, with the intention to desecrate the revered heritage of the people of Lagos.
“It is an unjust profiling of a people and culture as being barbaric and nefarious. It depicts a gang of murderers rampaging across the State”.
