I had the opportunity to watch a Nollywood (Nigerian movie industry) action thriller movie directed by Fred Amata on Africa Magic yesterday, titled: Anini. The movie was released in 2005 and features Nollywood stars like Bimbo Akintola, Fred Amata, Jeta Amata, Segun Arinze, Chidi Mokeme, Ashley Nwosu among many others with Jonathan Gbemuotor as Director of Photography.
Jonathan Gbemuotor is with Tade Ogidan and you can expect the best of camera works whenever Jonathan Gbemuotor is behind the camera.
Synopsis: True life story about a notorious criminal who terrorised the city of Benin and the high profile mission to apprehend him.
I heard about the escapades of the likes of Anini and Shina Rambo who were both notorious armed robbers in the late 1980s. I am thus assuming that this movie titled Anini is based on a real-life story.
The movie set in 1986 when the military still ruled Nigeria, starts with Anini in the hospital with an amputated leg, telling the story of his life, of how he turned out to be a deadly armed robber. As a young boy who left his village for Benin city in search of a brighter future, he joins a mechanic workshop as an apprentice, learning to fix automobiles. He soon learns through another apprentice, how to steal car spare parts and sell to a certain unscrupulous spare parts dealer. For the fine details, grab a copy of Anini.
Eventually, he becomes a hardened, much feared armed robber on rampage who goes about shooting police men. The important thing for me about the movie is that it highlights the entrenched corruption in the Nigeria Police. In a scene, Anini is seen lamenting that men of the Nigeria Police give them tips about where to rob, hire weapons to them for use in robbery, come back to arrest them for robbery, and then harass them to part with bribes so they could walk free. What an irony.
The movie also brings to fore, the failure of the past Nigerian governments to adequately cater for the citizenry. Corruption in government is one thing that has brought Nigeria to its knees today and just about every problem in Nigeria today can be traced back to corruption in high and low places: erratic power supply, poor security, poor roads, poor air safety records, poor telecom facilities, etc.
Well, Anini is a movie worth watching – if you can get a copy.
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