.By Mava John Joshua
‘IJAKUMO’ in Yoruba is the name of the animal called Jackal in English, an animal smaller than a wolf; and sometimes hunts in a pack(like the wolf) but usually singly or as a member of a pair. This brand of dogs are mischievous.
Ijakumo could also be interpreted or obnoxiously used for a person who does dishonest or humiliating tasks for another; a cheat or swindler. It could also be regarded as a person who performs dishonest or base deeds as the follower or accomplice of another person who performs menial or degrading tasks for another.
The movie ‘Ijakumo’: The Born Again Stripper’ begins with Asabi (Toyin Abraham) going home for the remembrance of her late father’s death. Pomp and pageantry were displayed to grace the occasion as the father was a great traditionalists that had supernatural powers.
After the brief introduction and hype by the cultural group as way of honouring her and her late father’s prowess, from there, she went to pay homage and reverence to her father. She later went to the rock which led to her remembrance of her past. This triggered her desire for revenge for the loss of her pregnancy. Asabi deployed conventional means through a plot to bring in a beauty plus brains personality in the form of a stripper to do the damage instead of using the diabolical powers she inherited from her late dad.
Meanwhile, her childhood love Pastor Jide (Kunle Remi) that poisoned her, leading to the loss of the pregnancy and probably her permanent inability to bare children again is doing well in his new role as ‘Pastor Jide’ of a mega church in Lagos with the plans of building one of the biggest and best cathedral in Abuja, faced with stiff opposition from board members of the church.
A Ugandan club girl, Sharon (Lolade Okusanya), was chosen to assume the role of a choir leader while she doubles as a stripper.
Pastor Jide’s high taste leads him into confrontation with the powers that run the church led by Bimbo Akintola, the powers that actually brought him from his poverty state to the wealth he now parades. This begin to go awry for Jide, a situation that led him to the stripers club where his life begins to take a dip down into all the unexpected twist in life and the beginning of his fall from the height of his accomplishment as modern day mega Pentecostal pastor.
A good movie to watch because it exposes but the way churches have been turned into. The church appears to have become a mega business empire where offerings and donations are in dollars in a country where hunger is the bane of the populace, even as the Pastors of these churches live in extreme affluence with expensive cars and mansions.
Produced by Toyin Ibrahim, after hitting Netflix in 2023, ‘Ijakumo: The Born Again Strilper’, has become a talking point as one of many Nollywood stories with realities that the Nigerian society endures; that of greed, deceit, lust, betrayal, religious corruption, and vengeance mingle with flamboyance, pride, ego, wealth, and power.
Scripted by Kehinde Joseph and directed by Adebayo Tijani, the movie was nominated for Best Picture Editor (Steve Sodiya), Best Sound Editor (Kazeem Agboola) and Best Cinematographer (Idowu Adedapo) in the 2023 Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards (AMVCA).
A movie enthusiast named simply as Horrendous, said that the movie had an okay storyline but the execution was pathetic. “A whole two hours and we never get a backstory on how Asabi became successful! Haba!”
Omogboyinde seem to agree with Horrendous. “The story doesn’t add up, and has plenty loopholes. The fighting scenes too were nothing to write home about. But nice settings and the camera quality and angles were good. It didn’t live up to my expectations. The movie was okay, however, the Sharon and Mary part of the plot was a bit confusing but overall the movie was not so bad. Why do 90 percent of the church members have dollars?? How did the hacker crack the code just from knowing the name of the device? The Ugandan accent was just irritating and fake,” he queried.
