Ijakumo: The Born Again Stripper

Suffice to say that the storyline of Ijakumo is summarized in the saying, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”. In the movie, twenty years after she has been jilted and betrayed by her former lover Jide (Kunle Remi), Asabi (Toyin Abraham) cooks up an elaborate plot to bring him down and get revenge on him for how he treated her in the past.

The phrase “elaborate plot” here though is a bit far reaching. She simply hires a stripper to steal a flash drive from him that is supposed to hold within it the secrets of Jide’s entire enterprise as well as that of the caliphate to which he now belongs. Because although Jide fronts as the spiritual head to one of the biggest Christian ministries in town, it turns out that he is secretly a member of a cult-like caliphate that uses the church as a front for money laundering. This caliphate is also apparently involved in a number of untoward activities in the city, including and not limited to human organ trafficking. According to Asabi, she has been plotting this ever-so-elaborate plan of hers for many years and has tried time and time again to find a way to obtain this flash drive but has failed repeatedly. Which is actually quite difficult to believe considering how easily Sharon (Okusanya Lolade) is able to seduce him and convince him to take her home with him.

The convenience of the plot line is actually not the most debilitating aspect of the movie. In all fairness, the first half of the movie seemed to have all the makings of a decent watch. The production quality is pristine and the manner in which the ‘megachurch’ and Pastor Jide are presented in the first few scenes truly convince the viewer of the world of Ijakumo. The first few flashbacks draw you in and tease you with the prospect of truly entertaining revelations to come by the end of the movie. Even Toyin Abraham’s overacting tendencies in these scenes do not manage to detract from this appeal. However, as the storyline continues to progress, especially as Sharon starts to work her ‘magic’ on Pastor Jide, the already relatively weak writing gets more tired and tired.

There is no higher manifestation of the failure of the writer, editor and director combined than in the scene where Sharon is searching for the flash drive. From the search around the house which consisted only of turning one framed photograph over before finding the correct room, to the ever so convenient password decoding skills of a hacker called Anto (played by the actress similarly called Anto Lecky) to Sharon’s ease in stumbling upon said life-changing flash drive and her eventual escape from the room. It truly is the compounding of convenience upon convenience. With such weak acting in scenes like this, one must respect the audacity of Nigerian filmmakers to still go forth and dub this movie a thriller. Let us not even begin to talk about the comedy of the final action scene in this movie where half the time one could barely make out what was supposed to be happening on screen.

All these aside, saying the movie is completely devoid of a single glimmer of hope is far reaching. If not for anything Bimbo Akintola’s mere presence in the movie elevates the whole affair. For Bimbo is yet to see a single shot that she does not add class to. Kunle Remi as Pastor Jide is also very convincing to watch from scene to scene, although there is no special thing about him here that takes you to the point of truly deriding his character as is necessary to move the story forward.

The unnecessary hair Asabi carries around is tremendously confusing, the music is overtly aggressive in more scenes than one, Toyin Abraham’s character could have possibly been better served in the hands of an actress that over-acted a bit less, and the placement of the sponsored ads could have been a bit more overt. Yet, this is still arguably one of Toyin Abraham’s better movies and is not a completely lost cause.