Do the Right Thing

 

As Nigeria rapidly urbanizes, some citizens have concerns for its potential effects on people's sense of community and the behavior of individuals. Two such people, Uche Chukwu and Kiki Omeili, voice these concerns through Nollywood cinema. Chukwu is the director of Run (2019), which was written and produced by Omeili who also stars in the film as its protagonist. Run explores the dark side of these sprawling metropolises by exposing the self-serving behavior of the people the main character encounters on a late night jog gone awry. At the same time, this woman, Tomilola, is a beacon of hope among all these self-interested city-dwellers because she always takes the moral highroad, even if it inconveniences her.

Right off the bat, the film establishes Tomilola as a good person, maybe almost too good. She works hard at her company, goes running, checks her breasts for lumps every day, and flosses; the woman can seemingly do no wrong. Even her last name is Wright. One night, however, she makes the mistake of leaving her phone at home to charge and forgetting her wallet, too. After witnessing a national politician shoot someone under the cover of night and the anonymity of the city, one of his henchmen chases her until she has to call a cab to go home.

The driver threatens her when she can't pay him, and she ends up on the run again, this time encountering a variety of people. Tomilola sees a couple engaging in prostitution, a cook and her customers at a food stall on the side of a road, and a group praying around a woman about to give birth. Although Tomilola comes to each of them visibly in distress, none of them make any attempt to help her. This is a critique of the coldness of big city life in which everyone is too caught up in their own lives to take the time to assist someone in need. 

Despite the lack of empathy from those around her, Tomilola still wants to help others. She insists that the prostitute and her client use protection and that the group praying should take the woman in labor to a hospital. Towards the end of the film, her selflessness extends to the man from the roadside food stall who chases her after she tries to take his phone to call her friend in order to get to safety. He suddenly collapses from a seizure, and instead of grabbing the phone and running, she moves his body into a secure position and then calls an ambulance. Tomilola is a prime example of a fictional, on screen character serving as a role model "for upcoming generations of Nigerians who see the country in a different light as portrayed by Nollywood" (Akinola 24). Run concludes with Tomilola finally being aided by local police, and her story from that night leads to the eventual arrest of the politician whose actions caused the whole misadventure in the first place. This optimistic ending illustrates that being a moral person in the face of adversity will lead to good outcomes, a message that is a bit oversimplified but nonetheless encourages people in urban areas to remember the humanity in everyone.