Enit'ayanfe Ayosojumi Akinsanya 2024

I will try to avoid spoilers as much as I can!!!

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1. Misogyny, religious fanaticism and a cold-hearted capitalism are the strongest sparks that ignite the most raging infernos.

Perhaps if Jedidiah's parents had approached the issue differently, she might have been guided better about her life 'choices'. Perhaps if Chairman Chigozie had rewarded Emeka's passionate loyalty when he most needed it, Emeka would not have yielded to the push that made him do what he did. If the armed robbers had learned to curtail their careless greed, they might have gone scot-free. And if Daddy Michael had not disrespected his wife's industriousness and insulted Jedidiah's motherhood, he certainly wouldn't have fallen into such an instant public disgrace.

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2. Single mothers (with children by different fathers) did not ask for it. The stigma that comes to such women is wicked and cannot be overemphasized. These fathers (I mean the ones who are alive) can at least do better for their children and not leave the mother to raise them alone. If you are such a father and their mother stops you from seeing them, then it's either you are in a position dangerous for the children's welfare or—I hardly think this is a cogent probability—she's just being unreasonable. If you are alive and sane, be in your children's lives.

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3. Still on single mothers—all of them are forced by circumstances to be extremely strong. Jedidiah raised those five boys as best as she could in a dysfunctional, money-challenged setting. For instance, she taught her last born that he was not supposed to enjoy the harvest that comes from tricks. (This is both an ironical moment and a masterful foreshadowing for what later happened in the movie.)

It was not easy on the sons either. Adamu had to forgo the love of his life because the Hausa marriage culture required that he know his father's home, a piece of information he had always wanted to know all his life but which his mother's ingrown trauma couldn't bring itself to accurately provide.

And yet, in every ghetto family, there is that child who must worry the parent. Shina did not go to school because of his dyslexia. He also refused to mind his small shoemaking business. He preferred to hang out with street boys (this helped sha!). Pere, on the other hand, was a kleptomaniac whose soft heart only managed to sit side by side his callous resolve. Their mother was constantly terrorized by the deeds and fate of these two. One could see how she barely had one second of joy in the movie. From long moments of tears to panic to urgently selling her tricycle so she could bail her son to getting clubbed by a mob because of her son, she struggled painfully to make something better out of her sons. Next time you want to laugh at a single mother or send her to hell, first pause and ask YOURSELF (NOT HER): “Where is the man?” It is the most honest, most intelligent question you can ever ask yourself, because—for the specific part—children don't have one living parent.

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4. Jedidiah's boys respected her tremendously. As a child, this is the least you could give back to a parent you particularly see giving their all to really being a parent of which you can be proud. Respect. She only had to call their names just once in that Daddy Michael scene and they obeyed her immediately, in spite of their still-boiling fury.

They also loved her. Oh, how they loved her. The return-from-hospital scene made me soak my cheeks. Lord, they loved her. And I believe it was because of the way she raised them, always reminding them to love one another and correct one another as a family despite their weaknesses and tribal differences. I think it's been long since I saw a movie in which the trope dwelled more on the love the children have for their parents rather than vice-versa. ATCJ taught us that, even in the wildest, darkest slums, love and respect in a home can thrive powerfully.

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5. One's background is not an excuse for one's lack of purpose in life. Clean white rice can be scooped out of a sooty black pot. Ejiro is a talented artist (painter), despite also being a conman because of some goofy Gen Z love. Emeka spent the most part of his life in the ghetto, yet his character remained soft, honest, hopeful and perhaps even naïve. Adamu came back from the north with his mother to live in a Lagos slum and still chose to be that brave, responsible, accountable and kind brother with a job and who even thought of starting his own family. Yes, one can argue that the rest of the boys had foundational growths in the slum and this could have played a major role in forming them into the way they were. Still, it is not an airtight excuse. You can always choose what you want from an environment, and this movie—while telling us to try and choose right—did not fail in showing us what is most likely to happen that one time we decide to go out of character.

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6. Tribal unity is achievable, and beautiful, especially under the weight of differences in language and culture. Jedidiah was Igbo but she mainly spoke Yorùbá because of her longer years in Lagos. She spoke a tidbit of Hausa too, having spent years in the north as well. This made it easy for her to flow as a Maruwa driver. Emeka grew up with his grandmother in the east, learnt Igbo there, yet he fit in well with Adamu and the rest of his brothers. Adamu, who grew up in the north with Jedidiah when she was still living there, also blended seamlessly with his siblings. Pere's father taught him a bit of Ijaw as a child before death snatched him away. And Jedidiah named Ejiro after his father's people. The entire Judah family is a framework that shows that, under an efficient mother, brothers from various ethnic backgrounds can come together and work together to accomplish the most scary goal in their family history. They morphed from being “sons from five different tribes (WAZOBIAMOBO)” to being A SINGLE POWERFUL TRIBE.

Kai! Nigeria, are you learning?

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7. If you truly want something, don't stop worshipping its imagination, presence, ego, anything. Testimony got what she wanted by being constantly present around her dream, despite Jedidiah's rejection. She no gree for anybody! And, sometimes, we rob ourselves of the chance to know how much we matter in other people's stories when we give up too soon.

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8. Mental health is too underrated in our part of the world. Jedidiah's depression and anxiety manifested themselves in excessive alcoholism, but her neighbors dismissed her as just “a fun feminist Keke driver strong enough to deal with five grown sons”. She took dry gin like water. Of course, she reaped the consequences. Sad, how these things become a vicious chain: one problem causing another. I think we owe ourselves the determination to find joy and peace in healthy bowls, so that we won't wander into blacker depths and a trigger a cycle of more woes.

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9. The responsibility we pile on firstborns is so unfair. The mental black tax, the emotional blackmail—these can become really problematic. Every family has that upright unproblematic child that has to do uncomfortable things and give difficult permissions to his siblings just to make everyone safe. Okay, I do not blame Grandma for saying the things she said to Emeka. But I wish—I just really wish—Emeka had been better equipped for the life of crime into which he tumbled.

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10. Your colleagues, neighbors and street people are part of your strongest links and, at the same time, weakest links. These people can make or mar you. Imagine that Adamu had presented himself as someone untrustworthy or unscrupulous even to his fellow security officers. The chief goon who tortured him would not have found grounds (at first) to believe his story. Imagine that Emeka had had a cat-and-dog relationship with Hilda. Do you think she would have inserted herself so smoothly, so easily, in the plan to convincingly corroborate the Libya story? Imagine that Shina did not have street credibility; what do you think would have happened? Imagine that Jedidiah had been nasty and standoffish towards Mama Caro. Imagine that Mama Caro didn't have authority over the ghetto boys. The tragedies in this movie could have been worse.

No matter how low your confidence or interest is, take care of your relationship with the people around you because, one day, they may have to show up for you. Or not.

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11. Don't disown the child that troubles you. A day will come and you will wish he was around.

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12. Love always, ALWAYS, wins in the end. Even when it's scared. Especially when it is scared.

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13. Don't come for a woman who has loving children who would never stand to see their mother disrespected in any form. DON’T. You don't want to witness what Daddy Michael witnessed in the first scene.

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14. Always trust your guts. Shina knew the operation might not go according to his elder brother's unrealistic injunction, so he sneaked a gun with him. Adamu knew the chief goon who tortured and interrogated him would later wonder if he really should have believed him, so he acted faster than he had planned, telling his brothers that Grandma would be arranged to join them later. Itele knew from superior experience that the Judah family would definitely be followed and, fully exercising his street credibility, he stationed his boys at the only route to the river and gave them a liquid weapon to intercept any concretely suspicious intruder they saw.

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15. Jungle justice is just terrible. We live in an angry country further inflamed by the dubiousness of the police, so people take laws into their hands. There are other reasons that incite people into this gruesome and graphic act, and these reasons include poverty of the mind and just plain black hate and ignorance. While this has 'helped' mop up actual criminals faster, its violently irascible tone-deaf nature has also lumped many innocent lives into the mix. The commotion at Mama Caro's stall floats to mind. That scene held my heart like a vise, and my eyes teared up during its unfolding because it reminded me of Port Harcourt's ALUU 4.

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16. Sometimes, the usual criminal is not the one that committed the particular crime. But who will believe this criminal? If you are a notorious farter inside a room and, one day, you do not fart but someone else in the room does, how many people do you want to convince that you were not the one? Maybe don't do crime at all so it would, perhaps, just perhaps, be very difficult for people to point a finger of suspicion at you. Don't do crime at all.

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And then, finally,

17. Still on crime—a life of crime NEVER pays with peace coins. Chigozie paid for his crime. The greedy people who came to rob him also lost their lives. The Judah brothers jumped into the fray and, because life must take its pound of flesh in one way or the other, because life is give-and-take, they lost both their freedom and their most beloved brother—FOREVER. Notice also the epilogue (at the end) of the movie... The photos displayed on the screen. Aha. It never ends once you start it.

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Like I said in my review two days ago, “A Tribe Called Judah” is not just a movie; it is A NATIONAL CALL, and I think part of what inspired the story was the tribalistic chaos that pervaded Nigeria during the last elections.

What a sermon, ATCJ. Such reminders of life. Such a monumental, meaningful project from which (I hope) we will never recover as a country.

It is truly worth its crazy wins at the Box Office. They made A MOVIE.