Lately, Nollywood has been taking us to another level of premium entertainment with these movies and series; the stories, the drama, the suspense, the clashes and conflicts, all of it! But entertainment is not the sole goal of these productions, awareness also is. The Nigerian movie industry has begun to mirror the life and struggles of the average Nigerian teenager in their rawest and most honest forms. Struggles rooted in adolescence and early adulthood such as bullying and pressure surrounding sex, abuse, drugs, and emotions are now being acknowledged.
Nollywood is showing the youths that they are seen and heard and is letting the older generations know what goes on in the youths’ lives and how to help them navigate through the issues that come with the phase. In this series, we take a deep dive into the four outstanding Nigerian High School movies and how they have helped to shape culture and address issues affecting young people. It was produced in partnership with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) so that probably gives you an idea of one of the themes of the production. It addressed other young adult issues such as love, entanglements, sex, abuse, betrayal, and ambition. The first season centred on university students and was aimed at spreading HIV awareness through the lives of the main characters
At the beginning of the season, Ekene and Foye are lovers and, of course, sexual partners, but shortly after the season opens, we find out that Ekene had been cheating on Foye with her best friend, Sophie! To worsen the case, Sophie finds out that her sugar daddy, Solomon (Sani Mu’azu) has HIV after snooping around and finding his anti-retroviral drugs, and it’s all chaos from there; hearts are broken, trust is broken, and everyone has to get tested. On the other hand, Princess, Sophie’s younger sister, is sent to visit Lagos to check on Sophie. Her sister sends her back home with money for her transport fare, but she decides to stay in Lagos with two roommates, David (Efa Iwara) and Tobi (Timini Egbuson). Tobi and Princess fall in love, but one thing threatens their relationship; Princess’s sugar daddy, Solomon – yes, the very same Solomon! Unfortunately for her, she tests positive for HIV (and from what we find out in the later episodes, pregnancy as well).
The ‘high school’ genre is not that you associate with Nollywood on a regular day. When you think of the genre, you probably imagine White kids in a school that permits virtually everything and teenagers doing ‘bad things’. Besides prominent Nigerian high school movies like Binta and Friends, which thrived on TV in the early 2000s, this particular genre doesn’t have as much hold in the industry. Thirteen years down the line, it appears that Nollywood is now paying more attention to youth-centric productions.
Through these stories, Nollywood is showing the youths that they are seen and heard and is letting the older generations know what goes on in the youths’ lives and how to help them navigate through the issues that come with the phase. In this series, we take a deep dive into the four outstanding Nigerian High School movies and how they have helped to shape culture and address issues affecting young people.
On the other hand, Princess, Sophie’s younger sister, is sent to visit Lagos to check on Sophie. Her sister sends her back home with money for her transport fare, but she decides to stay in Lagos with two roommates, David (Efa Iwara) and Tobi (Timini Egbuson). Tobi and Princess fall in love, but one thing threatens their relationship; Princess’s sugar daddy, Solomon – yes, the very same Solomon! Unfortunately for her, she tests positive for HIV (and from what we find out in the later episodes, pregnancy as well). PRINCESS RECEIVING A GIFT FROM HER SUGAR-DADDY, SOLOMON.
From Princess’s experience and how the situation was handled, we learn that HIV is not a death sentence and that it’s possible for a mother not to pass the virus to her baby. Through the compelling story, they took us through a lesson on how anti-retroviral drugs reduce the chances of passing the virus from one person to another as the drugs give room for the immune system to repair itself and prevent further damage Foye, Ekene, and Sophie’s story tells us a bitter truth young people are having more sex than we think and it is only wise to use protection! However, it’s still best to try as much as possible to stick to one sexual partner.
