News for those of you in Nigeria…

Biyi Bandele’s Half Of A Yellow Sun – a film adaptation of celebrated author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Orange Prize-winning novel of the same name – opened in UK theaters 3 Fridays ago, April 11, and was to open in Nigeria, where the film is set, last week Friday, April 25, but that didn’t happen, as its release date was postponed to May 2nd, due to “delays in getting certification from Nigerian Film and Video Censors Board.”

The film’s debut Nigeria debut date has been postponed once again for the very same reasons, although no specific future date was given this time around.

Needless to say, many in Nigeria, who were eagerly anticipating the film’s opening today, continue to be disappointed. Some calling it business as usual. 

Government censors say that they have delayed the release of the film because “it might incite violence in the country” given its subject matter – specifically, a scene that details a massacre at a northern Nigerian airport – in light of current political turmoil within the country. Nevermind that it’s a film whose backdrop –  the Biafran war, which saw millions killed – is based on fact. The Censors Board might not be giving Nigerian audiences enough credit, and ultimately, this will likely end up being much ado about nothing, as the noise created by the film’s release delays may actually drowned out any made by audiences about the content, after the film is finally released.

Those in the USA will be familiar with these kinds of concerns; just ask Spike Lee, as one example, whose incendiary Do The Right Thing was a concern for distributors and theaters, who feared that the film would spark riots and violence. It didn’t.

Author of the novel, Adichie, has her own theories, which she expressed in an op-ed for The New Yorker, published yesterday, in which she essentially scolds the Nigerian government for trying to run, as well as shield Nigerians from the country’s history. Although she also attempts to make sense of the Censors Board’s ambivalence:

The censors’ action is a knee-jerk political response, yet there is a sense in which it is not entirely unreasonable. Nigeria is on edge, with upcoming elections that will be fiercely contested, religion and ethnicity increasingly politicized, and Boko Haram committing mass murders and abductions. In a political culture already averse to openness, this might seem a particularly appropriate time for censorship. But we cannot hide from our history. Many of Nigeria’s present problems are, arguably, consequences of an ahistorical culture. As a child, I sometimes found rusted bullets in our garden, reminders of how recent the war had been. My parents are still unable to talk in detail about certain war experiences. The past is present, and we are better off acknowledging it and, hopefully, learning from it.

You can read the full insightful piece HERE.

Half Of A Yellow Sun hits USA theaters, courtesy of Monterey Media, on May 16th, without any delays, I’m sure. 

It will also screen at the upcoming New York African  Film Festival in less than a week.