Review: Citation

The first scenes of Citation, a Kunle Afolayan feature, show a visibly distressed young lady on the phone with a lecturer telling her he won’t change her grade until she has sex with him. This scene is alternated between angled shots of Obafemi Awolowo University; these are the first of many grand, almost in-your-face shots of the school, one of the most popular universities in Nigeria.

We are then moved to a hotel room where the lecturer has been set up by the boyfriend of the girl in the first scene. It ends with the lecturer being dragged and beaten till he runs into the road and gets hit by a car, killing him.

There is such a dark, morbid feeling to that scene but also a truthful one. In many Nigerian universities sexual assault by lecturers and professors alike is a pandemic of its own that is never addressed save few times when women have put themselves in danger to obtain proof — video or audio evidence because, sadly, their word is never enough. This was seen in the BBC African Eye Sex For Grades documentary produced by Emmy-nominated Kiki Mordi and the case of Motunranyo Afolayan who recorded her lecturer threatening to fail her for turning down his sexual advances (which in some twisted poetic fate also occurred at Obafemi Awolowo University). So, it would be no surprise if women who have suffered at the hands of lecturers and professors find the death of the abuser in the first scenes satisfying and even cathartic.

These first scenes set the mood for the rest of the film where Moremi Oluwa, played by first-timer Temi Otedola, narrates to a panel the story of how she met Professor Lucien N’Dyare, played by Jimmy Jean-Louis, and how he harassed her. The movie bounces between past and present with rich but tenebrous cinematography from Jonathan Kovel and costumes that sometimes forget the year they are in; a merging of past and present fashion to create a beautiful but occasionally distracting tapestry. The Netflix budget is apparent in the brilliant use of location, especially the scenes set in Senegal where we are bathed in beautiful sights that might leave you longing for a place you’ve never been to.

Where Citation soars in visually pleasing scenes, it fails in realistic dialogue and a layered main character. Conversations are choppy and almost robotic, like the characters are waiting for cues to deliver their lines, and Moremi sometimes falls into the mould of the perfect victim. There is also a somewhat unnecessary alternation in languages, French and English, during conversations between N’Dayere and Moremi. It is something you would expect from people bilingual from birth and not Moremi who took French as an elective.  

As the story unfolds, from Moremi innocently teaching N’Dyare how to drive a car with a manual transmission, to their field trip in Senegal where their dynamic becomes more disturbing, to the climax scene in N’Dyare’s house where we are left with no doubt of his guilt, one cannot help but compare the happenings in the film to the realities of Nigerian universities and society at large. There are similarities, of course, in the way Moremi is ostracized by her friends and boyfriend, Koyejo (played by Gabriel Afolayan expertly bodying the arrogance of a final year med school student); the way the panel begins proceedings from their bias of disbelief; and the burden of proof falling on the victim, N’Dyare’s celebrated status shielding him. There are also moments of wistfulness: how many assault cases ever reach panels here? Are there any advocacy groups for victims of sexual assaults in universities? How many people have the financial privilege to travel to another country to find proof of a man’s history of assault? And on a lighter note, which Nigerian med school student really has the time to get a black belt in karate?

Citation also suffers from a length issue standing at a lengthy two hours and thirty minutes, with some scenes going on longer than needed (the concert scene comes to mind). But despite all these, it shines a light on a rot that has festered in the Nigerian, and even West African, university system. With a measured but sometimes inadequate performance from Otedola, and a cast of both newcomers and Nollywood veterans (Ini Edo playing Gloria whose arc somehow gets lost in the movie, and Joke Silva playing the mildly annoying lawyer, Angela), Citation brings some nuance to the tired Nollywood scene by exploring a horrid issue that has been reduced to a small inconvenience. Hopefully, more films follow its path and even forge new ones, bringing important social issues to the spotlight on the back of a good story.