Eyimofe- Randoms

Instead of closing out on a task for work ahead of Monday, I have spent the last few hours watching Eyimofe. And by God, I am utterly blown away.

Many films attempt to catch the story of the up-and-comer, the Nigerian making their way up from the very bottom. They often fail because they romanticize it a little too much. They acknowledge it but not totally, pausing to cover it up with decor that does not tally with the circumstances of the story or language that is foreign to the characters.

Eyimofe does not make such errors. It is raw and exact. And if you grew up wriggling your way up the Nigerian pyramid, you recognize it immediately with the imagery and conversations hitting close to home. This was you. This can still be you in Nigeria’s precarious state where you are one accident, one debilitating sickness away from lack, penury and death.

You feel at home when Eyimofe is on the screen. The trick of knowing how to act around privilege, the code-switching. The fucking resoluteness in the eye, the hunger, the desperation for a better life. The awareness of what zero is and being unafraid of it because you know you will rise.

It reminds me of Uncle Demola, a convert that had joined our startup church some years back. He spoke little English and had dropped out of school in between junior secondary classes. But that did not stop him. When it was time for testimonies he spoke his halting English, broken tenses and all with confidence that made you ashamed of the laughter in your belly. You sat up. You listened.

He took that same determination to life. First making money from his family’s tradition of playing drums. The “Ayan” bloodline. Then he learnt barbing, opened his own shop and bought a car. Then he moved his barbing salon to a better location. Barbing soon became too small and he moved into real estate, buying and selling land. Our startup church closed a little after that but on random days I think of Uncle Demola and his unquenchable thirst for better, his unawareness of the odds that society stacked against him. It’s what keeps me going. In employment, out of it, in empty bank balances or stashes of cash, what makes me is my hunger. Push me to zero a thousand times and I will start again. Eyitimofe ma kan mi.

*Ayan — A family of drummers that passes the skill from generation to generation