By Funke EGBEMODE
(egbemode3@gmail.com)
“You can rule the Riverine region with two eyes.
You can rule Kaduna with two eyes.
But governing Jogbo requires 12 eyes.
You can rule Ibadan with two mouths, Lagos too.
But unless you have 18 mouths you cannot rule Jogbo.
You can hold Ekiti and Egba with two hands
To rule Jogbo you need 24 hands.”
-Lines from Tunde Kelani’s Saworoide
The sacred gong of Jogbo was not a musical instrument for entertaining corrupt politicians. It was an instrument of supernatural judgment, and its ultimate punishment was DEATH!
Here is exactly how the punishment worked:
The guilty chiefs were given an opportunity to confess their corruption and other atrocities before taking the sacred oath.
The gong was struck seven times, accompanied by sacred incantations.
Those who concealed their crimes suffered excruciating, supernatural pain, described in scholarly accounts as severe, incurable headaches. Those who stubbornly refused to confess died.
Balogun and Seriki, two particularly corrupt Jogbo chiefs, died on the spot during the ceremony.
Afowofona kii duro r’ojo. The consequences of their lives of decadence arrived instantly.
Twenty-four years ago, Tunde Kelani looked into the future of Nigeria and saw trouble. He saw greed wearing heavily-embroidered agbada. He saw men who would rather burn down a kingdom than surrender their access to its treasury. He saw powerful chiefs who believed the resources of the land were their personal inheritance and the people unfortunate tenants who deserved to go to bed on empty stomachs. TK saw a country where the problem was not necessarily the man on the throne, but the men who surrounded the throne, controlled access to it and decided who deserved to sit on it.
In 2002, he called that kingdom Jogbo, Jogbo bi oro, a bitter, difficult to rule kingdom.
Like one country you and I know.
Kelani’s Mainframe Film and Television Productions gave us Agogo Èèwò, a political masterpiece written by the brilliant Professor Akinwunmi Isola. It was a sequel to Saworoide, another unforgettable examination of power, corruption and the consequences of leadership without conscience, a special brand of leadership ‘for me, myself and I.’
Now, in 2026, Agogo Èèwò has been remastered for YouTube. The pictures are clearer. The sound is better. The colours have been refreshed.
Unfortunately, that country it interrogated has not undergone the same treatment. No, the country has not been remastered. The sounds coming from it are guttural, full of pain. The colour of the future remains unclear, uncertain.
Indeed, if you removed the costumes of the Jogbo chiefs, replaced their traditional beads with designer wristwatches, exchanged their horses for the latest bulletproof SUVs and relocated their meetings from the palace to government lodges in Abuja and the state capitals, you might mistake the film for a documentary shot last week.
That is the tragedy of Jogbo and his elder brother, Nigeria.
The story of Agogo Èèwò is deceptively simple, like many Yoruba folktales but they are classics, deep stories woven together by culture and jewelled with philosophy and concrete belief systems. Let me attempt a synopsis.
Following the violent collapse of the old order in Saworoide, the people of Jogbo desperately need a fresh beginning. Their kingdom has suffered under rulers who treated public resources as private property. The people are exhausted. The treasury has been abused. Trust has been destroyed.
Surely, with the departure of the old oppressors, a new day should dawn. That was what the people of Jogbo thought.
Not so fast.
The corrupt chiefs have other plans. They need a new king, certainly, but not necessarily a good one. They need somebody who will occupy the throne while they continue to occupy the treasury.
Enter Adebosipo, a retired police officer. In him, the chiefs believe they have found their perfect candidate. They imagine he will be manageable, grateful and obedient. A king who will understand that the people who installed him must be allowed to enjoy their investment, all their fingers in the till.
In Nigerian political language, they are looking for a loyal successor. Somebody who will protect their interests.
Somebody who will not ask inconvenient questions about yesterday’s transactions.
Somebody who knows who made him king.
But the chiefs miscalculate.
Adebosipo decides that being king should mean serving the kingdom, not sharing its wealth among a privileged few. He begins to challenge the entrenched interests that brought him to power. And suddenly, the same men who installed him become his enemies.
Does that sound familiar?
How many Nigerian political godfathers have installed governors only to declare war on them when the governors refused to surrender the treasury? How many political friendships have gone up in flames because a successor developed an independent mind? How many godsons have discovered that the price of political freedom is a bitter war with the very men who sponsored their ambitions?
‘Tulaasi laa fi feran Sango.’ (You love the god of thunder by force)
‘Tipatipa laa fi feran eni to ju ni lo.’ (You must love your oppressor by fire)
The love between kingmakers and kings in Nigeria is like the love between a bully and his victim. They both hold hands in public but when no-one is looking, they clench teeth and fists. They keep their seething anger and resentment under wraps until they tear each other’s wrapper at the village square.
We have watched these dramas from one political dispensation to another. Sometimes the godfather wins. Sometimes the godson survives. Sometimes both sides fight until governance becomes collateral damage.
And the people?
They wait for roads, hospitals, schools, water and electricity while their leaders settle ownership disputes over public resources.
In Jogbo, the chiefs did not particularly care whether the king succeeded. They cared whether their privileges stay in place.
In Nigeria, too often, the political question is not whether the people are better off but whether the right people are still eating.
That is why Agogo Èèwò remains painfully relevant.
Consider the extraordinary arrogance of the Jogbo chiefs. They are not satisfied with their positions. They want control without accountability, wealth without work, influence without responsibility. Their idea of governance is an arrangement in which a few powerful men consume what belongs to everybody.
Twenty-four years later, Nigeria is still wrestling with that mentality.
Public office remains, for too many, an opportunity for personal advancement rather than public service. Political appointments are celebrated as invitations to prosperity. Supporters expect rewards. Contractors expect access. Party loyalists demand compensation.
We have developed a political culture in which a man who spends four years in public office without becoming mysteriously wealthy may be considered unfortunate.
If he leaves office without mansions, expensive vehicles and enough money to finance another generation’s political ambitions, his relatives may wonder whether he understood the assignment.
What assignment?
The one nobody writes down but too many understand.
Get there. Grab what you can. Remember your people. Secure your future.
And please, do not return home empty-handed.
The frightening thing about Agogo Èèwò is not merely that corruption exists in Jogbo. It is that corruption has become organised, protected and defended by the very custodians of the kingdom.
That is a much more dangerous disease.
A corrupt individual can be investigated. A corrupt institution can frustrate investigation. But when corruption becomes a governing philosophy, honesty itself becomes an act of rebellion. That is why those who want to do what is right are labelled rebels and men who must be disposed of quickly.
As Adebosipo discovers in Agogo Eewo.
The chiefs are not merely uncomfortable with his integrity. They see it as a threat to their survival.
That is the point at which the film stops being entertainment and becomes a warning.
A country is in serious trouble when the honest man becomes the enemy of the system and the thief becomes its most protected citizen.
There is another dimension to this remarkable film that deserves attention: the relationship between natural resources and national poverty.
Jogbo is blessed with resources, yet its people suffer because powerful individuals have captured the benefits.
Does Nigeria need subtitles to understand that scene?
We have crude oil, gas, fertile land, solid minerals, rivers, forests and an energetic population. Yet we continue to struggle with inadequate electricity, failing infrastructure, unemployment and widespread poverty.
We are rich enough to attract thieves, but have too many citizens who cannot afford the basics of a decent life. The paradox is almost supernatural, like witchcraft.
How does a country blessed with so much produce so many people living with so little? How does a nation earn billions from natural resources and still struggle to provide dependable public services? How does a government explain enormous expenditure while citizens search desperately for evidence of the expenditure in their daily lives?
The tragedy is not simply that money disappears. It is that every missing public naira represents something that was not built, supplied, repaired or delivered.
A road that remains dangerous.
A hospital without essential equipment.
A school where children learn under leaking roofs or without teachers.
A young graduate whose qualifications cannot find productive employment.
Corruption is not an abstract offence committed against government accounting books. It is violence against the future. And this is where Kelani’s storytelling becomes especially powerful. The film does not simply complain about corruption. It imagines accountability.
Imagine the sacred Agogo Èèwò, the taboo gong, in contemporary Nigeria. Imagine corrupt leaders not being able to hide behind their titles, connections and influence. Imagine them being forced to confront the consequences of their conduct, forced to confess before the gong sounds seven times.
Imagine a sacred gong installed at the entrance to every government house, ministry, legislative chamber and public procurement office.
Imagine every public official being required to explain the difference between legitimate earnings and accumulated wealth.
Imagine contractors accounting for roads that exist only in budget documents.
Imagine political office holders explaining how public service transformed them into multimillionaires. Imagine former officials answering questions without first calculating which political party currently controls the investigative agencies.
The queue before that gong might stretch from Abuja to Badagry because the truly disturbing question is why, in 2026, we still need a fictional sacred gong to imagine consequences for stealing public money.
We have laws. We have auditors. We have courts. We have anti-corruption agencies. We have legislative oversight committees. We have constitutional provisions and financial regulations. What we too often lack is consistent enforcement without political favour.
The gong of Jogbo did not require the thief to belong to the opposition before it could sound. Our own institutions must aspire to that standard.
There is, however, another lesson that deserves equal attention.
In Agogo Èèwò, the people are not entirely helpless spectators. Their collective demand for justice matters. The kingdom’s salvation cannot depend solely on the goodwill of one ruler and that is where Nigerians must look inward.
We complain about corrupt leaders, but how often do we excuse corruption when the beneficiary is our relative, friend, benefactor or political champion? We denounce stolen public funds until some of the proceeds arrive in our communities as gifts. We demand accountability from political opponents and manufacture excuses for our preferred politicians. We celebrate extravagant generosity without always asking whether the generosity is consistent with legitimate earnings.
A politician distributes expensive gifts, and we hail his generosity. Another politician refuses to distribute money, and we accuse him of being stingy.
We want honest leadership, but sometimes we demand the privileges that dishonest leadership provides. That contradiction is one of the biggest obstacles to the Nigeria we claim to desire.
But all hope is not lost. Our leaders just need to become Adebosipo, a leader who demonstrates that a leader need not become a prisoner of the interests that brought him to office. They can choose the people over the powerful. They can recognise that the throne is not personal property and the treasury is not a family inheritance.
It is a difficult choice because it comes with enemies, betrayal and political danger. But it is a choice and perhaps the most important lesson for today’s political leaders.
You may inherit a rotten system, but you do not have to preserve its rottenness. You may be surrounded by greedy advisers, but you do not have to enable their greed. You may have been sponsored by powerful interests, but the public office you occupy belongs to the people. You may have benefited from the old order, but you can still decide that the next generation deserves something better.
The film does not need elaborate explosions or expensive foreign locations to make its point. Its greatest special effect is the uncomfortable recognition it produces in the viewer.
We know these Agogo Eewo chiefs.
We know their methods.
We have watched their political descendants on television.
And we have lived with the consequences of their decisions and self righteous arguments.
Perhaps that is why the remastering of Agogo Èèwò is both welcome and depressing.
Welcome because a new generation can discover a remarkable work of Nigerian cinema. Depressing because the political questions it raised in 2002 remain so urgently relevant in 2026.
When an old political satire continues to function as contemporary commentary, what does that say about our progress?
Twenty-four years should be enough time for a country to learn some lessons.
Enough time to strengthen institutions.
Enough time to establish consequences for public theft.
Enough time to develop a political culture in which leadership means service rather than entitlement.
Yet here we are, still debating the same issues, still enduring the same betrayals, still watching the same struggles over who controls the treasury.
Kelani has done his part.
He preserved the warning in film. He has now helped preserve the film for another generation. The responsibility for changing the story belongs to us. Because there is something profoundly tragic about a country that keeps producing brilliant artists and writers who diagnose its problems while its leaders continue to reproduce the diseases.
In the end, Agogo Èèwò is not merely the story of a kingdom called Jogbo. It is the story of what happens when public office becomes private business, when political loyalty replaces moral responsibility and when the powerful forget that a kingdom exists for its people. It is also the story of what becomes possible when someone finally decides that enough is enough.
The film has returned, brighter, sharper and better preserved.
Nigeria must now decide whether it wants to remain the original, uncorrected version of the tragedy. Kelani has remastered his masterpiece. Who will remaster Nigeria?
And one final question for the chiefs of our modern Jogbo: if the Agogo Èèwò were to sound seven times tonight, how many of you would still be standing tomorrow morning?
