“Aníkúlápó: The Ghoul Awakens” Is Kunle Afolayan Unravelling?

In a 2021 The Film Verdict review of Kunle Afolayan’s Swallow, Nigerian film critic Oris Aigbokhaevbolo captured the national acceptance of the director as the Nigerian film industry’s mascot of artistic excellence. Ola Balogun, Tade Ogidan, Tunde Kelani and others were synonymous with artistic excellence. But, in the early 2010s, Afolayan introduced himself as another story-conscious and ambitious storyteller. Irapada, The Figurine, Phone Swap and October 1 – his magnum opus, were nationally accepted. 

Afolayan has anchored his creative ingenuity on these films which he made with pedantic attention to storytelling and quotidian Nigerian social and spiritual experiences. But, after October 1, the succession of films and series which the director has made has consistently dulled the sharpness of his earliest works. The director, who had established himself as one of the Nollywood outliers, who prioritizes careful and smooth storytelling armed with notable social commentary and cultural consciousness is unraveling. 

The creative ingenuity that gave him this critical position has consistently depleted. Swallow is interested in showcasing set pieces as opposed to pursuing a story. A Naija Christmas is a dull attempt at capturing what Christmas means in a Nigerian setting. In Aníkúlápó, the filmmaker returns to his comfortable abode of infusing Yoruba folklore and metaphysical worldview in his film. In this film, a mythical bird wields power over death. Saro (Kunle Remi) will gain this power and get intoxicated by it. 

This film’s global success has, ill-advisedly, given rise to two series : Aníkúlápó: The Rise of the Spectre and Aníkúlápó : The Ghoul Awakens. In the 2024 six-episode miniseries, we follow Saro’s posthumous activity. He has been tasked with reclaiming the lives of everyone he resurrected. He becomes an unwilling messenger of death so that he can get passage to the spirit world. To widen the story world, Bashorun Ogunjimi (played by Owobo Ogunde), who plans to overthrow the king, gets introduced as the series’ major antagonist. 

Afolayan’s troubles are similar to that of Kemi Adetiba. King of Boys started as a movie but the mainstream attention it received compelled the director to make a franchise. To accommodate the storytelling demands of a franchise, both filmmakers have to introduce new characters, conflicts and plots to expand the storyworld. This led to significant gaps and convoluted storytelling. 

Aníkúlápó: The Ghoul Awakens, which premiered on Netflix on 30 January 2026, is supposed to deepen the Yoruba metaphysical worldview and raise the stakes. But, despite the excessive five-episode timeline and introduction of new characters and subplots, the series amounts to an exaggerated waste of resources and audiences’ time. 

When Aníkúlápó: The Ghoul Awakens begins, Bashorun Ogunjimi is set to face punishment for his earthly evil deeds. For a story anchored on the Yoruba worldview and spiritual systems, this is a misrepresentation, as the Abrahamic heaven and hell don’t exist in the Yoruba worldview. Bashorun Ogunjimi successfully escapes the afterlife only to return to earth as an undead. 

Prince Aderoju returns to Oyo and his attention gets monopolized by the absence of his sister, Omowunmi. For the largest part of the series, he schemes on how to get Omowunmi back from the people of Ede. Much to Aderoju’s confusion, Alaafin is indifferent towards the return of his daughter. By refusing to prioritize Omowunmi’s return, Alafin exposes a long-standing culture that treats women as disposable bargaining chips for political peace and territorial gains. 

Five episodes in, the series woefully fails to justify its existence. The plethora of overlapping plots disallowed an overarching story to be established. What the series rewards viewers with is a convoluted and aimless plot. The lack of continuity and divergence in storytelling makes it difficult to discern if the series shares kinship with Aníkúlápó or if it’s a stand-alone series. This series is best described as an unwitting co-opting of two strangers as siblings. 

The return of Aderoju and what it represents, the rescue of Omowunmi, the abandoned story of Bashorun Ogunjimi, Arolake and Awarun’s slave trade business and Akin and Arolake’s story are some of the series established stories. But, these multiple subplots got drowned by a writing that doesn’t understand timeline, sequences of events and smooth storytelling transitions. What we get is a series that prioritizes its world building, knotted storytelling and inaccurate representation of Yoruba spiritual beliefs. Aníkúlápó: The Ghoul Awakens is a hopeless series that crumbles when placed side by side with Afolayn’s more artistically-ambitious films. 

There are few things as horrifying as a history and culture-focused filmmaker drowning their films in historical inaccuracies. Afolayan has created a reputation for representing Yoruba cultural essence and worldview but in this series, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Additionally, the director has consistently produced junked-filled stories and it’s important to ask what the problem is. Afolayan isn’t suffering to cultivate audiences. In fact, Nigerians know him for films that propel intellectual and critical discourse.  He also isn’t under financial pressure like any other naive and upcoming filmmaker. Neither does he have to genuflect in reverence to towering industry gatekeepers, nor is there significant financial risk. Why then has  he been making objectively bad films and series? 

Maybe it’s all intentional. Maybe Aníkúlápó: The Ghoul Awakens, his other series and films and other mainstream Nollywood productions, in their flatness and tedium, are meant to serve as a reflection of the death of Nigerian cinema, depicted so bleakly during this series’runtime. Maybe the joke’s on us, critics and conscious film watchers. Maybe this series is a painful signal that intellectually-conscious and plot-clear storytelling is dead in Nigerian mainstream cinema. 

The above might be the only sensible explanation for the exaggerated and futile characters, scenes and subplots written into this show. The scenes and characters are so vapid that it’s impossible to care whether the characters achieve anything significant. The series isn’t trying to say something provocative about anything. There will be a third part which will be considerably bland and more infuriating.