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African Affairs Advance Access originally published online on April 10, 2006
African Affairs 2006 105(421):511-533; doi:10.1093/afraf/adi125
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© The Author [2006]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved

Political critique in Nigerian video films

Jonathan Haynes

Jonathan Haynes (jhaynes50{at}yahoo.com) is Associate Professor of English at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University, New York. He was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Nigeria-Nsukka (1991–92), Ahmadu Bello University (1992–93), and the University of Ibadan (1996–97).

Video films have established themselves as the dominant form of Nigerian popular culture, with more than 1,000 titles being released every year. They arose during politically tumultuous times but have had a reputation for being studiously commercial and avoiding political subjects. This essay attempts to revise this conventional wisdom by exploring three video genres that embody forms of political critique: the hardy genre of films about traditional rulership; the crime thriller, with several variants; and family melodrama, which tends to infiltrate all other genres. It then surveys some films with directly political subjects made since the end of military rule in 1999.


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