“Hijack 93” is Nollywood’s Biggest Letdown of the Year

Thirty-one years after Nigeria was shaken by a daring act of defiance, Netflix, in collaboration with Play Network Studios and Native Media TV, revisits the event with its historical drama, “Hijack ’93.”

Marketed as a fictionalized retelling, the story closely mirrors the events of 1993: four young men, angered by the annulment of Nigeria’s June 12, 1993 elections and the ensuing political turmoil, hijack a Nigerian Airways Airbus A310 en route from Lagos to Abuja. Their plan is to reroute the plane to Germany, using hostages as leverage against the military regime.

However, fuel constraints force them to land at Niamey Airport in Niger, where Nigerien military forces swiftly surround the plane. Three tense days of negotiations follow, leading to a dramatic final boarding and capture of the hijackers by soldiers.

Hostage films are typically hard to mishandle, as suspense alone can make up for other shortcomings. Mid-air hijackings, among the most terrifying of hostage situations, usually carry a built-in intensity. Yet ”Hijack ’93” accomplishes the nearly impossible feat of making a hijacking feel uninteresting.

The film wisely skips unnecessary buildup, diving right into the action—an approach that works, given the audience’s familiarity with the story. But as events unfold, the film feels astonishingly underdeveloped. The lack of attention to detail and amateurish execution make *Hijack ’93* feel more like an incomplete draft than a polished production.

As a period drama, the scenery feels nothing like Nigeria in 1993—neither the clothing, color palette, nor the political atmosphere.Nigeria in 1993 was in chaos after the annulment of an election won by popular candidate Moshood Abiola.

Setting the stage with the resulting political instability and social climate should be a given in a film meant to evoke the intense emotions of that time. Its absence renders any attempt to evoke sympathy or highlight the Nigerian government’s indifference to its citizens (such as negotiating for only 10 releases on a 200-passenger plane) ineffective.

A less conspicuous but no less important example of the filmmakers not doing their homework is a scene where soldiers fast-rope from a Mi-17 transport helicopter. Not only did the Nigerian Air Force lack this class of helicopter in the 1990s, but fast-roping is typically used for situations where landing isn’t feasible, not when descending onto an open runway as depicted in the film. Call this what you will—cherry-picking or bias—but the fact remains that anachronisms such as these are very fatal to historical dramas’ authenticity.

But choice of weaponry and even costume can be forgiven. Bad acting, meanwhile, cannot. And as far as bad acting goes, this movie takes the cake. Reasonably, the hijackers had little to no training and thus are inexperienced in the art of hijacking or hostage taking. Regardless, it’s simply no excuse for bad acting.  Budding actors Adam Garba, Nnamdi Agbo, Oluwaseyi Akinsola and Allison Emmanuel who play the hijackers are anything but convincing in their role. What’s worse, even seasoned actors like Nancy Isime and John Dumelo failed to leave a mark. Only Sharon Oja and Bob Manuel seemed the part and in the context of the general performances of the cast, these two are one-eyed men in the land of the blind.

Couple this with non-existent character development, motivation and backstory as strong as plywood, poorly written and executed dialogue and a narrative structure whose major highlight is a bunch of non-sequitur scenes enough to mess up anyone’s brain cells and you have easily the Nollywood worst movie of 2024.

At a time when the country’s present economic hardship mirror that of the early 1990s in which the movie was based, it would be right to assume that director Robert O. Peters, writer Musa Jerry David, and producer Charles Okpaleke set out to do two things: to resurface the image of the since-released hijackers as a subject of intense moral debate and to rekindle a sense of patriotism not too dissimilar with the recently released Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti biopic. Not only have they failed at both, they have doomed the 1993 event to always be remembered in conjunction with an eyesore of a movie.

Release Date: October 25, 2024

Runtime: 90 minutes

Director: Robert O. Peters

Streaming Service: Netflix

Cast: Bob Manuel Udoku, Nancy Isimie, Efa Iwara, Adam Garba, Nnamdi Agbo, Oluwaseyi Akinsola, Allison Emmanuel, Sharon Oja, John Dumelo, Sanni Mu’azu, Yakubu Mohammed, Jessica Lorraine, Kalu Ikeagwu, Patsha Bay, Freddie George, Sam Dede, Idia Aisen, and Akash Khati.