Espeakilekwe Maka Confuse Ga Aduma Kwa!!! Meet Nkoli Nwa Nsukka

IF you have seen the trailer of Nkoli Nwa Nsukka then you already know that it is no joke at all… Or is it?

Produced and directed by Mac Collins Chidebe, Nkoli Nwa Nsukka is an open-eye version of every nollywood village sob story. The main difference here is that where you would usually have a young girl under a tree crying to a terribly lip-synced Igbo soundtrack, here you have Nkoli sewing and knitting the Igbo language with English in ways that you’d never imagine while hitting her private parts to send the point home.

Nkoli Nwa Nsukka, aptly named, is the story of Nkoli a young girl growing up in Nsukka with her sick mother, a younger brother and a man she is intensely in love with. The movie/series stars Rachel Okonkwo as Nkoli and Pope ‘Jnr’ as Magnus (her love) with many other appearances by many actors as the movie/series goes on.

In the first season/episode we are introduced to Nkoli who has one or two money problems but still walks around with a smile on her face wherever she goes. This is what attracts the engaged city returnee, played by Browny Igboegwu, to her. He falls for her and ignores his English and Igbo speaking, light skinned Lebanese imported wife to chase Nkoli. Nkoli ends up rejecting him and so the story proceeds.

From season to season we are exposed to different facets of her life while living continuously being amused by unique reactions to all of life situations. Nkoli Nwa Nsukka, both the character and the show are in a class of their own. Honestly, we are not even sure whether this is a movie or a series seeing as it is divided into ten parts that last about an hour. This technique could have turned out to be a massive failure and financial loss if the show did not resonate so well. From market-squares in the east all the way to North America, a lot of people have caught the “espeakilekwe” and “onwelo” fever.

…and for good reason.

Even though the directing, video quality, audio, writing and many technical aspects of this show fail over and over again, the ‘relateable’ factor seems to elevate it beyond what anyone could have previously imagined. Then there is the uber impressive Rachel Okonkwo as Nkoli who simply embodies the character from scene to scene. At a certain point one might actually begin to think that this is who she really is in her everyday life. It was delightful to watch all our Igbo actors speaking their native tongue and doing it justice PIECES! The question though is, how many episodes/seasons will most people be willing to sit through?

It is with shows and movies like this that we realize that no matter how ‘new nollywood’ we get, the people who are putting money into supporting nollywood are more about the roots than about the glitz and glam.

The entire season of this show/movie is now available on YouTube on NollywoodPicturesTV