Afolabi Olalekan’s “Freedom Way” Fails to Aspire Beyond Reiteration and Lamentation

Afolabi Olalekan’s Freedom Way written and produced by Blessing Uzzi, takes a lengthy and laborious 90 minutes to drive home a single point: our lives, as humans and Nigerians, especially, are connected. Uzzi’s script assembles a varied cast to make this point: the co-founders of Easy Go Ride, Themba (Jesse Suntele), Tayo (Ogaranya), and Edi (Mike Afolarin); a motorcyclist, Abiola (Adebowale “Mr. Marcaroni” Adebayo) and his loving family; Dr. Chetta (Taye Arimoro) and his girlfriend, Temi (Teniola Aladese); the archetypal corrupt police officer, Ajayi (Femi Jacobs); and  Mr. Adewale (Akin Lewis).  In Uzzi’s script and Afolabi’s directorial debut, these characters and their parallel stories reflect how citizens, regardless of their social class, are treated in the Nigerian political and economic landscape. A secondary and superficial point the film makes is this: a single,  isolated, and seemingly inconsequential decision or act can affect the trajectory of the lives of a community. 

In Freedom Way, that isolated decision is the Lagos State Government’s decision to ban motorcycle riders in parts of the state. This policy decision, which does not consider the economic realities of citizens like Abiola and his family, nor the business and financial implications for tech entrepreneurs like Themba and Tayo, sets off a chain of tragedies in the film as it must have done in 2022 in real life. Abiola loses his livelihood and is ensnared in Ajayi’s unlawful stop-and-search routine. For Themba and Tayo, it means losing years, time, effort, and money invested in building an app to solve logistics problems in the state. 

Freedom Way leans into a political undertone and tension that the script is eventually incapable of expressing and articulating beyond the surface. Themba and Tayo, as vibrant young African co-founders, who are handicapped by governmental policies, isn’t a new narrative for Nigerian founders. Similarly, Dr. Chetta, the Good Samaritan doctor, reprimanded by his superiors for treating a patient without a police report, shows a bureaucratic absurdity in Nigerian healthcare that isn’t new either. The film makes a fine case of presenting the varying levels of governmental failure, police oppression, and the overarching effect on the average Nigerian citizen. But, beyond this exhibition of hardships, the film doesn’t critically bring into focus the institutional frameworks that allow this situation to thrive. 

Nigerian filmmakers aren’t activists, nor should their films be obligatorily filled with protest-driven rhetoric. However, when films venture into political and social commentary, it is important to analyze their political intent. It becomes pivotal to ask what new insights, ideas, and thinking the filmmaker is offering in addressing the issue at hand. Analyzing the statements the filmmaker is making or seeks to make with a character, dialogue, or the whole film isn’t out of place. Freedom Way, unfortunately, lacks this introspective lens.. The absence of new ideas, challenging questions, and memorable statements that the Nigerian audience can reflect on and hold conversations about makes Freedom Way one of many Nigerian films that add nothing significant to Nigeria’s canon of politically conscious cinema

Written by Akinwumi Ishola, Tunde Kelani’s Saworoide, which translates to Brass Bells, is a Nigerian classic not merely because it’s made by one of the country’s veteran filmmakers, nor because the film portrays the transition from civilian to military government. Kelani’s film, beyond pointing viewers’ attention to the corrupt practices of a despotic king, the murders in response to civic resistance, and the exploitation of citizens, holds a meaningful and insightful conversation around these political issues. Tade Ogidan’s Owo Blow is another Nigerian film that goes beyond mere commentary on the systemic failures in the country. A contemporary Nigeria film, The Agbajowo’s The Legend of the Vagabond Queen of Lagos which is centered around the forced eviction of the Agbojedo community also transcends passive mourning. The film confronts the Lagos State Government’s unlawful arrest of citizens for infuriating and silly reasons, the disillusionment of young Nigerians aspiring to leave the country, and the grim realities of displaced Nigerians. These films progress beyond lamenting Nigeria’s challenges; they engage and critique it. This is what’s missing in Afolabi’s Freedom Way.  While it shows the grim political and economic realities inspired by the Nigerian government, the film doesn’t interrogate the system beyond surface-level critique. 

Films, generally, clone reality. Nigerian films, more specifically, clone Nigerian realities. From Old to New Nollywood, Nigerian films are cinematic archives of Nigerian social, cultural, religious, and political realities. Films like Living in Bondage, Isakaba, Saworoide, Owo Blow, Eyimofe, Oloture, With Difficulty Comes Ease, The Trade, and others like it carry the weight of Nigerian consciousness in ways that can only be fittingly captured by Nigerian filmmakers. But, is this enough? Should these politically and socially conscious films just be an empty regurgitation of state and socially approved corrupt practices, the ineptitude acts of the Nigerian government, and, in the case of Freedom Way, a treatise on police brutality? Where are the places of films like Owo Blow, Saworoide, and The Trade that don’t just expositorily capture these tense political narratives but position new thinking? 

What Freedom Way does, almost perfectly, is portray the collective awareness of how the Nigerian government stifles Nigerian dreams, the rampant corruption in the Nigerian police force, police brutality, governmental oppression of citizens, and the traumatic impact on the Nigerian mind. However, the film doesn’t aspire beyond this exposition. Where’s the strong argument against this governmental oppression? The absence of a character, dialogue, or scene that fiercely opposes the oppressive realities the film seeks to address makes the political intent of the film vague and soft. Towards the end, the film tries to address the insensitive demand, from health practitioners, for a police report before a Nigerian gunshot victim can be treated. This scene, however short-lived, captures the possible questions and dialogue the film could have posed rather than the sob-inclined narrative it carries. 

Films are a powerful medium of conscious engagement, and filmmakers, when they know and wield it, have the potential to improve citizens’ political consciousness and engagement.