Movie review by Mercy Oluwanisola Akintola
A Drum, a Crown, and the Consequences of Bad Leadership.
As a child I grew up in a house like most kids my age watching the weekly episodes of This Life, Fuji House of Commotion, Papa Ajasco, Super Story and the rest of them. But the adults around me were movie lovers and a classic now and then was normal in our house. Sunday rice for me and pounded yam for them, all of us gathered around the same television.
Although I was too young to comprehend the plots of those films at the time fully, one image became deeply ingrained in my head: a military man trying to force a crown onto his head and dying in the process. That image stayed with me for so long that the first time I heard the Abacha story, before I even knew what Abacha looked like, my brain associated the actor who played that role with him. I genuinely thought that man was Abacha.
Then there was this song by one of the characters that went like this
“Yó ma lè yín, yó ma lè yín, oro yì yó ma lè yín…”
This situation will lead to negative consequences.
From the movie, my uncle would sing it for my siblings and me anytime we were playing too rough, using style to let us know that if we did not stop playing, one of us would cry or all of us would cry. The movie became a part of my life without me knowing the plot until I got to university and decided to rewatch it, and my God, dare I say it is one of the best classics to come out of Nigeria.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of the Federal Republic, the movie I am talking about is none other than Saworoide by Tunde Kelani
The 1999 film follows the story of the fictional Yoruba kingdom of Jogbo. The movie starts with a parable of a drum played on a saworoide, a large talking drum with brass bells around it. Tunde Kelani tells us with text that it is the story of a pact between an ancient community and the kings that rule over it. Think of it like a modern-day treaty. He shows us how the treaty was done and how the special talking drum was built.
The point of the treaty was to make sure that whoever is king answers to the people. So when someone wears the crown, and they beat the drum called saworoide, and the people are not happy about him being king, the person dies. The pact forces every incoming king to submit to a ritual linking his body, conscience and reign to the drum.
In one of the first scenes, a chief goes to meet an old wise man to ask if his friend could be king, and the wise man says I already told you he who loves a good life must not aspire to be king, the king serves the people, not the other way around, and their king cannot be rich like other kings. The chief tells the old wise man that he wants his friend to become king so they can spend money, and the wise man says he could become king, but he should make sure he refuses the incisions and taking the oath because this is what connects the kings to the drum and the crown.
Lapite becomes king, refusing the coronation pact, choosing power without accountability, without thinking of the consequences. Yes, there were consequences. Any king who avoids the incisions risks sharing his crown with someone. Second, if you wear the crown and they beat saworoide he will die of a splitting headache.
Lapite’s solution was to kill the Ayàn family, the drummers and his political opponents and steal what he thought was saworoide so none of them would ever play the drum.
Not long after King Lapite took over the throne, the citizens became very unhappy. King Lapite and his chiefs did not care about Jogbo; they cared about making money for themselves. Tunde Kelani shows us this by King Lapite and the chiefs buying the latest cars with money he got from foreigners who were taking resources from the land of Jogbo, and the press asking them where they got the money. There was hunger in the land and protests by the youth.
Lapite ruled for almost twenty years, and for the citizens, it was hell. The youth took matters into their own hands, and when Lapite could no longer control the situation, he sought help from foreigners who were exploiting the land for its resources, and they supplied him with heavy ammunition and military support.
The military colonel they brought, named Lagata, saw how much money the king and the chiefs were making and decided to form a coup against King Lapite. He killed King Lapite, made himself king and ruled like a totalitarian seeking total intrusive control over every aspect of public and private life. Tunde Kelani shows us this with silent scenes of military men arresting the press, various stop and search and soldiers collecting taxes from hawkers.
To cut a long story short, the youth were able to find the surviving member of the Ayàn family to beat the saworoide on the day of Colonel Lagata’s coronation, causing him to die of a splitting headache, and the people getting their land back from corrupt leaders.
The movie ends with the wise old man telling the audience that the young and the old should all unite in building a better society.
THE CAST.
The movie is a little over twenty six years old, so the cast includes OG Nigerian actors and actresses. Some of them, like Kunle Afolayan, who plays Aresejabata, Khabirat Kafidipe, who plays Araparegangan, and the beautiful Bukky Wright, were probably at the beginning of their careers when the movie dropped. Watching them now feels like watching history in motion, seeing stars before they became the names we know today.
The older OG stars are just as powerful. Kunle Bamtefa, who many of us know as Chief from Fuji House of Commotion, plays Ogagun Lagata with chilling authority. The film is filled with a long list of Nollywood actors whose faces shaped Nigerian television and cinema for decades, giving the story a grounded, familiar weight.
The cinematography was nothing fancy, and that is understandable. This was the cassette era. But the story more than made up for it. It was not just a story. Tunde Kelani implored us, as citizens of the world, to participate in the rule of law in whatever way we can, so power does not remain in the hands of a limited few. His filmmaking is deliberate and patient. He trusts the audience to think, to listen, and to remember.
The story was relevant back in 1999 and is even more important now. I have only seen a handful of Tunde Kelani’s films, but every time, his stories make me sit still and think. That is exactly what Saworoide did to me.
The political references do not just point to Nigeria. They remind me of many countries around the world that pretend to practice democracy while power quietly shifts into the hands of a few. And that is what makes Saworoide timeless. It does not age. It waits.
POLITICAL REFERENCES.
There is an adage from the movie that I cannot stop thinking about, one that reminds me deeply of Africa. The wise man says it to one of the chiefs when the foreigners arrive with a so-called solution to help the king deal with the uprising of the youths. It was said in Yoruba. My Yoruba writing skills are not great, but you know what was great? The subtitles of this movie.
The adage goes something like this: a burglar offers to fix your doors and you are not vigilant. That line alone carries the entire weight of Africa’s relationship with the West.
It immediately reminds me of how Western countries often come in the name of “help.” Aid. Support. Development. What we now understand as saviour complex. They build infrastructure that later becomes a form of neo-colonialism. Loans that never truly end. Systems designed to keep countries dependent rather than independent.
Instead of King Lapite being diplomatic with the youths, instead of listening or addressing their grievances, what does he do? He arrests them. He kills them.
Does this sound familiar?
Yes, it does. Because End SARS read like a page torn straight out of King Lapite’s rulebook.
Another political significance that stood out to me was how the foreigners began playing both sides. At some point, they were sponsoring the youths by supplying them with ammunition, while also sponsoring the king and the police. Chaos became profitable. Instability became a business model. The longer the crisis lasted, the more leverage they had.
There is a scene where the foreigners are having a private meeting, and one of them says it is because Lapite is stupid that they are making so much money. He says they never make money this easily in other nations. Another one goes even further and says something chilling: it pays them more to have a corrupt ruler on the throne than a just ruler.
That line alone explains decades of African leadership failure backed quietly by foreign interests.
Another detail Tunde Kelani adds, subtly but deliberately, is that the king and the chiefs always keep their money in offshore accounts so as not to arouse suspicion. They steal from their own people, but they trust foreign banks more than their own land. That too feels painfully familiar. Nigeria is rich, yet the wealth of the nation sleeps abroad while its people struggle at home.
One scene I will never forget, because it reminds me so heavily of Nigeria, is when the colonel (Ogagun Lagata) brought in by the foreigners to help the corrupt King Lapite asks one of his soldiers, who is a citizen of Jogbo, what he thinks of the land. The soldier responds by saying they are suffering in the midst of plenty. He says it more powerfully in Yoruba, in a way I wish I could translate directly, but the part I understood clearly translates to: we have mats, but we sleep on the floor.
It reminds me of how many resources Nigeria has, oil, gas, land, people, creativity, intelligence, yet the majority of citizens suffer daily because of bad leadership and poor management. We have the mats. We simply are not allowed to sleep on them.
What makes Saworoide so unsettling is that it does not feel like history. It feels like now. The suppression of youths. The criminalisation of protest. Foreign interests protecting corrupt leadership. The military stepping in under the guise of restoring order. The media being silenced. The people paying the price.
Tunde Kelani is not just telling a story. He was issuing a warning. He was showing us what happens when citizens disengage, when culture is abandoned, and when accountability is traded for convenience. Jogbo could be Nigeria. It could be Sudan. It could be Congo. It could be Haiti. It could be anywhere pretending to practice democracy while power quietly concentrates in the hands of a few.
We may not have a saworoide drum today, but we have rights. And like the drum, those rights only work when the people are willing to use them.
That, to me, is why Saworoide still hurts.
And why it still matters.
I say all this to say that political participation is not for a select few. And I know it is very discouraging when you keep trying and you do not get heard. Whether it is picking a party you believe will represent your political ideology, joining conversations, holding leaders accountable, or simply going out to vote, it can feel pointless, especially when the system seems designed to ignore you.
But the truth is this: nobody is coming to save us.
That is the lesson Saworoide keeps repeating. Waiting for a perfect leader, a benevolent foreign power, or a miracle solution only leaves room for people like Lapite and Lagata to rise. Power does not disappear when citizens step back. It only moves into fewer and more dangerous hands.
Political participation does not always look grand. Sometimes it looks like asking questions. Sometimes it looks like refusing to be silent. Sometimes it looks like remembering history so it does not repeat itself. In Jogbo, the people lost their voice because they stopped guarding the pact. In real life, societies collapse when citizens are convinced that their voices do not matter.
We may not have a saworoide drum to call leaders to order, but we have laws, rights, protests, votes, conversations, and collective memory. These things only work if we use them. Democracy is not a gift. It is a responsibility that must be exercised again and again, even when it is exhausting.
So let us put the matter in our own hands. Not violently. Not carelessly. But consciously. Because the cost of disengagement is always higher than the cost of participation. And if Saworoide teaches us anything, it is that when people finally wake up, it is often after too much damage has already been done.
The choice is always the same: participate, or be ruled.
P.S. This message is not directed at Nigerians alone. If you live in a country that does not reflect your political ideology, do something about it. Silence only sustains systems that do not serve the people.
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