Chisom Ifeakandu’s “The Moral High Court” Tackles the  Near-Impossibility of Justice for Nigerian Women

Filmmaking, from a cultural and political perspective, is a filmmaker’s dull or blunt response to a question or concern. The question or concern might stem from the filmmaker’s personal reflection on social issues (think Old Nollywood’s didactic stories), from the compelling intention to address political and historical issues (think Tunde Kelani and Kunle Afolayan’s earliest works) or, as Chisom Ifeakandu’s The Moral High Court reveals, an urgent need to address an equally urgent issue: domestic and gender based violence against Nigerian women. 

Inevitably, the Nigerian film industry’s history is replete with an unbalanced blend of badly written and executed and well written and nuancedly executed stories tethered to the realities of Nigerian women. These stories, Stephanie Okereke-Linus’s Dry, Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 and Citation, Biodun Stephen’s Wildflower, Tochi Onwubiko and Orobosa Ikponmwen’s The Delectable Azeezah Sama, in varying scales of cinematic successes tell the individual stories of women. They tackle not just the complexities of being a Nigerian woman but one expected to shrink, fade and absolve pain without justice in sight. And, this is the entry point of Ifeakandu’s The Moral Highcourt, a short film. Where’s justice for average Nigerian women? 

Fastened to the stories of five Nigerian women Oseka Abraham (Tosin Adeyemi), Jessica Essien (Adekanmbi Nimi), Demilade Adesina (Kanyin Eros), Chika Okeke (Celestina Aleobua) and Fatima Azeez (Darasimi Nadi), the story presents an intergenerational approach to posing questions about the almost impossibility of justice for women. Written by Ozioma Ogbaji and produced by an all-female crew member, the film highlights the need to revamp Nigerians’ psychological and cultural memory and the Nigerian legal system. With Barrister Peters (Bola Stephen), the film stresses how a large majority of Nigerians are culpable, in our thinking, actions and inactions, when it comes to enforcing patriarchy and misogyny. And without dismantling the psychological and legal pillars of misogyny, justice might be miles away. 

The Moral High Court thrives on familiarity. When Chika Okeke talks about being disinherited, Oseka tragically recounts her sexual assault and Fatima details the gradual erasure of her ability to dream and aspire for societal positions as a young child, the stories are real because of how commonplace they’re.  In these five women stories, which is uncomfortably glossed over, the film re-introduces familiar stories and faces. The women are our neighbors, friends, partners and mothers. And that’s the core of Ifeakandu’s film. This is not a film that wants to actively or actually feed you with cinematic excellence even if there is a sizable splash of it across the 24-minutes short. This film sets out to reiterate how misogyny stifles women’s agency across different generations. And, with the daily-surge in gender based and domestic violence especially in Nigeria what the film offers is enough. 

Set in a symbolic courthouse, the film is a tragic but important reminder of the legion of injustice committed against women. Emboldened by the law, Nigerian men are absolved of criminal responsibilities for their misogynistic acts. When reliance isn’t place on religion and culture to explain away pedophilia, marital rape, emotional and physical abuse, they lean into the provision of the law. And as Moral High Court shows, the court room isn’t free of patriarchy’s footsoldiers. These footsoldiers can be lawyers, judges, doctors, engineers, actors and everyday people. Patriarchy breeds fast and there are laws to ensure its survival.  

In Naomi Ezenwa’s listicle for this publication, she detailed eight Nigerian laws that infantilize women and reduce their autonomy as humans. These laws are enshrined in the Labour Act 2004, The Police Act 2020, Section 26 (2)(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, Section 14(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 and other acts. Implicitly, the existence of these laws beckons at their full-blown endorsement of patriarchal perception and acts.  Thus, despite the cultural, religious and supposedly “moral” justification for the enforcement of misogynistic acts, there are Nigerian laws dedicated to the reduction of women’s rights and agency. And, as Ezenwa argues, the continued existence of these laws have a drastic effect on the daily lives of Nigerian women. “The continued existence of laws that directly whittle down the autonomy of women, compounded by failure to implement laws promoting women’s equality and the absence of institutional mechanisms promoting women’s rights (an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights), drastically reduce the quality of life enjoyed by Nigerian women,” she contends. The women in The Moral High Court and countless other Nigerian women are bearers of these burdens. 

Filmmaking is a stimulus response. And in an age of emboldened misogynistic acts, Nigerian filmmakers, as thinkers, philosophers and public intellectuals, should creatively contend with social issues. That gender-based violence and its acolyte doesn’t select its victims is the more reason why Nigerian filmmakers, unmindful of gender, need to address this cultural, religious, political and legal issue. Ifeakandu, as a stakeholder, has contributed effort to the dismantling of patriarchal walls. What will be your contribution?