Mon famile, how has the weekend been for you? Mine has been restive and watching Citation added some colour to my weekend. So, let’s get it rolling with the review of the movie Citation produced and directed by Kunle Afolayan.

First, I must confess the use of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) as the main setting in this movie is really beautiful and it added prestige to the movie and grandeur to the audience’s screen leaving each party with a good feeling especially Great Ife alumni like myself.

The movie started with the phone conversation between a female student and a lecturer bargaining on sex for grades arrangement. The lecturer even prescribed a hotel for the inappropriate sex for grades deal where he fell into the trap of the student’s jungle justice. Unfortunately, the jungle justice led to the man’s death as he was hit by a vehicle during his dance of shame. Of course, this landed the students in trouble. They were rusticated and sentenced to prison for manslaughter.

I must confess, I liked the trail of the jungle justice given to the lecturer until I saw the accident scene. It was unexpected and it ended up dissuading my thoughts about jungle justice. In a society like ours, most times if you don’t speak up or fight for yourself you never get the justice you deserve even Moremi, the protagonist in Citation Movie almost lost.

Talking about Moremi, no it’s not the prestigious Moremi hall in OAU campus. Moremi Oluwa was a 20 years old Masters student of International Relations, OAU with dreams of becoming the Secretary General of the United States of America. In Moremi’s class, we were introduced to 2 different lecturers, Professor Osagie the lecturer who is known for being stingy with grades and the academically adored Professor Lucien N’dyare, the movie’s antagonist who was unraveled as the movie progressed.

One of the many scenes in the movie Citation that got my attention was Koyejo’s introduction of himself to Moremi. If you are or were a female Great Ife student you probably can relate to Koyejo’s attitude of introduction of himself as final year med school. You know, guys in OAU final year med school think they are the best thing that has ever happened to a girl especially a jambito, so they introduce themselves with pride. Anyway, I liked the way Moremi also unwinded Koyejo’s ‘I am Koyejo, final year med School’ ego. He even highlighted his lecturer brother, all to impress/intimidate a supposed jambito.

The Citation movie was unfolded to the audience using flashback with the mix of the supposed present time which was the senate hearing of Moremi Oluwa and Professor Lucien N’dyare for attempted rape. At the first glance at the senate panel, apart from Mrs Ibukun Awosika that immediately got my attention, the student representative in buttoned-up shirt and beret also caught my eye, did she come there to sing or what? However, I guess her dress sense was to reflect the neutrality and unbiased state of the panel but time will attest to that.

Moving on, Moremi’s first one to one contact with Professor Lucien was after a tutorial class that showed Moremi to be an intelligent student who got noticed by her lecturer like you would expect. While Professor Lucien got Moremi’s attention with his use of French and inability to drive a manual car which led her to offer teaching on How to drive manual car 101 to the Professor.

Now, having watched the full movie, we were made to understand that the Prof was a manipulator who specifically lurked for Moremi and calculatedly preyed on her. However, the question is how the lecturer got to know that Moremi understood French or could even drive a manual car?

At the senate hearing, Prof. Lucien padded his side of his story with lies while Moremi’s truthful account was seemingly holding no waters even though she had a legal counsel from a women activist group who were low key trying to get fame through Moremi’s story. The use of comic relief in the movie was welcoming, it helped the relatability of the movie to the Nigerian society. Also, the casting in the movie was a good one, especially with Koyejo’s attitude which depicted Nigerian no-forming kinda guy and Moremi’s crippled Yoruba’s speech as a young lady who a ‘janded’ student was also relatable.

If you didn’t notice the amusing and annoying twin sisters in the Citation movie. A very good scene to remember is the surprise planned by the street-smart Dr Koyejo who officially became Moremi’s boyfriend. The excitement in this scene was contagious, the way Gloria beat Seun Kuti’s chest and the onlookers’ cheer reflected excitement. That night Koyejo a final year med school student and a soon-to-be Karate black belt holder taught Moremi a bit of self-defense technique while he also expressed his about his displeasure of Moremi’s familiarity with the lecturer.

Koyejo’s predictions turned out to be right because not long after Prof Lucien pointedly propelled sexual advancement to Moremi which she refused and reported to her boyfriend, Koyejo. Then things got heated up with the news of field trip to Dakar involving Moremi and other group members with Prof Lucien. Koyejo warned Moremi not to go, Moremi insisted on going and this caused a rift between the lovers. I asked myself too, if a guy/boy friend advised me the way Koyejo did, would I have listened? Definitely not. Like Moremi said ‘You are not paying my school fees’.

Moremi went on the field trip to Dakar with her coleagues, Koyejo broke up with Moremi, Moremi became more vulnerable, Prof Lucien tried to kiss Moremi but Moremi walked off immediately. In this field trip, it will be an incomplete review to omit the scene where a young boy came to Moremi and led her through lonely corridors to the beach side where she was joined by Prof Lucien. Watching Moremi walked through the lonely corridors, I was scared that something bad would happen to her because it was not just safe that she allowed herself to be led by an unknown boy into unfarmiliar places. Also, Kwesi and Moremi saw Prof Lucien having an heated argument with a man.
Still on the senate hearing, witnesses were called to testify and Gloria, Moremi’s female friend told lies against Moremi to imply that Moremi threw herself at Prof. Lucien.

However, the night that things really got sour was when Prof. Lucien hosted his students to a party in his house and somehow Moremi was left behind when others left. The Prof attempted to rape Moremi but she escaped using the self-defense karate tactic that Koyejo taught her. Who else liked Moremis’s outburst of ‘because I treated his fuck off’.
I liked it even though it was inapproporiate but winding back to the attempted rape scene, Moremi shouldn’t have stayed too long in the bathroom even though she felt uncomfortable and how come none of her classmates noticed her absence when they were leaving, nobody looked for her nor waited for her especially Kwesi. In real life scenario, that scene with proper actions wouldn’t have degenerated to attempted rape because Moremi shouldn’t have been alone with Prof. Lucien at that time of the night in his house.

Still with the ongoing senate hearing, Moremi realized she needed more to prove Prof Lucien’s guilt then she remembered the advice a stranger gave her at Senegal saying ‘Don’t walk too near the edge of the cliff in case the wind blows the wrong way and stumbles you over’. The stranger was the same man that had an heated argument with the Professor.
Moremi took the next flight to Senegal to locate that stranger called Cardoso and then she discovered Prof Lucien’s actually had a manual car before but abandoned it with his old lecturer. So, it means he lied to Moremi about his inability to drive a manual car. This was just the beginning of Prof Lucien’s dirty secrets to be unraveled as his canny history with women was revealed. We realized that the stranger, Cardoso was the father to one of Prof Lucien’s victims while the boy that led Moremi through the corridor was actually Prof Lucien’s abandoned son. While Dr Koyejo fought to gain his black belt in Karate, Moremi fought to prove her stance, she found the stranger Cardoso who unexpectedly came with Moremi from Senegal to testify against Proffesor Lucien.
Since the physical attempted rape, Prof. Lucien nullified Moremi’s effort towards her Masters’ project and this was actually the reason Moremi decided to speak up against Prof Lucien and this led to the senate hearing.

Eventually, the senate decided that Prof Lucien was found guilty of sexual harrasement, abuse of power, hence his employment with the university was terminated and led on to the state’s prosecution.

It was a joyous ending as Moremi won the hearing with Dr Koyejo her side after they had reconciled and Moremi was celebrated as a hero that she was. In this joyous scene, one can’t fail to notice Dr Koyejo’s expression of excitement, seriously Kunle Afolayan did a great job with the casting. And the final scene where Moremi was celebrated in her class was just the perfect ending as Gloria the betrayal hid her face.

The movie, Citation is a well scripted and directed movie that tells the prevalent Sex for Grades story in Nigerian universities that I was interesting and gainful to watch.
I hope you enjoyed this review as much as I enjoyed writing the it. Feel free to add your own bits of review in the comment section.

Have a splendid week ahead. Je t’aime mon ami😃😃