To Kill A Monkey movie review explores Efe’s betrayals, from family to friends, exposing how ambition and greed led to his downfall

When did a movie last stir up such controversy, with people across societal strata taking different sides of the argument? For me, the last film to achieve this before the recently released ‘To Kill A Monkey’ (TKAM) produced by Kemi Adetiba was ‘Acrimony,’ an American movie by Tyler Perry.

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Another film that comes close for me is Kunle Afolayan’s 2009 movie, ‘Figurine.’

TKAM follows Efemini Edewor or Efe for short, a brilliant but struggling graduate who, desperate to escape poverty and provide for his family, enters the world of internet fraud (Yahoo Yahoo) under the mentorship of crime lord Obozuhiomwen ‘Oboz’ Da Boss.

What begins as a quest for financial stability spirals into a web of betrayal, moral compromise, and deadly consequences as Efemini goes through complex relationships with his family, criminal associates, and others.

Permit me to use literary terms I am more familiar with…literature used to be my best subject in secondary school. Beyond the plot,

I carefully evaluated the characterization of all actors and actresses in the movie beyond just their surface actions to their deeper motivations and the psychological complexity that drives their relationships with Efemini.

From this, I have come to realise that our cerebral ‘protagonist,’ is actually the villain of the story. He betrayed almost everyone worth betraying in the movie. He was selfish, conceited, greedy, and narcissistic.

Before examining how Efemini failed himself, I will analyze several key characters in no particular order and explore how he systematically betrayed, manipulated, or abandoned each of them to reveal a pattern of self-serving behaviour that ultimately leads to his downfall.

His Parents

This revelation will shock many who watched TKAM. Indeed, little was seen or heard of Efe’s parents throughout the series. However, from his narrative in the first episode, we learn he was born to poor but determined parents who insisted that their station in life would not affect their child’s education.

They gave him the best their limited resources could afford, which he acknowledged was insufficient but definitely a big sacrifice on their part.

His parents are the archetypical Nigerian parents who hoped for a better tomorrow and invested everything, kitchen sink included, into their child’s education.

If you are familiar with the term ‘Black Tax’, then you will understand that this is nothing out of the norm, particularly with Nigerians of Efe parent’s generation where parents view their children’s education as both their legacy and their pension plan.

This child, one can infer, would eventually rescue them from poverty in their old age and provide the return on investment that would justify years of sacrifice.

Unfortunately for them, Efe was a colossal failure in meeting these expectations, losing both parents before achieving the success that could have improved their lives. Neither his father, who would philosophically tell him to “drink water and drop cup”, nor his mother benefited from his eventual criminal wealth.

In fact, his mother succumbed to illness at the hospital because he could not afford her medical bills, He couldn’t even give her a proper burial.

Whether poverty alone is to blame, is debatable, But one thing is sure, and that is, Efe’s parents deserved better. His success, when it finally came through illegitimate means, arrived too late to benefit those who had invested most in his potential.

Ivie Edewor

We first encounter Efemini’s daughter, Ivie (played by Teniola Aladese), in the middle of the second episode of TKAM.

Efe had just returned from what could be described as a terrible day, having rejected Oboz’s job offer out of moral superiority, lost his laptop to thieves who replaced it with a similarly sized piece of wood (a cruel metaphor for how life was playing him), and unsuccessfully attempted to reclaim his former job.

He returned home to find his wife and Ivie, his first daughter from another relationship, cradling one of his children. The first red flag that revealed his priorities came from his initial words to his biological daughter:

“What are you doing here?” It was his wife, Nosa who is not Ivie’s biological mother that had to explain and plead for Ivie to stay.

The young woman had fled because one ‘Uncle Ben’ had been attempting to sexually assault her, and her ‘Aunt Clara’ had kicked her out of the house for “attempting to sleep with her husband”.

Here, we begin to understand the exceptional character of Nosa, who stood her ground and insisted that Ivie would not return to a house where she might be raped.

This was remarkable, considering that most women in her position might view their husband’s child from another relationship as a burden or threat to their own children.

As later episodes reveal through painful confrontations between Ivie and her father, first after Oboz left due to their romantic relationship, then when Efe hit rock bottom, became drunk, and visited his daughter’s house in a pathetic state…we see that as a father, Efe was never truly present for his daughter from her formative years until she appeared at his house as a vulnerable young adult seeking refuge.

Therefore, his righteous indignation when the 24-year-old woman entered a relationship with his ‘brotherly’ and benefactor was hypocritical and came too late.

Ivie was among those courageous enough to tell her father the uncomfortable truth point-blank: that he blamed everyone for his misfortunes except the one person who deserved blame the most…himself.

Her testimony against her father at TKAM’s end was not just inevitable, but justice served by someone who had been failed by him long before his criminal activities began.

Dr. Nwaeze

Dr. Nwaeze, portrayed by Helen Enado Odigie, doesn’t appear frequently in TKAM, and I cannot fully distinguish whether it’s more appropriate to say Efemini failed or systematically used her, but her role is important in showing his pattern of exploiting good-hearted people.

We first encounter her in the first episode when she helped Efe at considerable risk to her career as a fresh doctor, probably new to the profession and vulnerable to disciplinary action. Having been robbed of N50,000 (money he had borrowed by sleeping with Madam Adunni) from a Keke Napep,

Dr. Nwaeze was literally and figuratively the angel who rescued him by ensuring his family received necessary medical services without bureaucratic hassles or upfront payments that he couldn’t afford.

Initially, viewers might believe that as someone who remembered good deeds, he was reciprocating her kindness by dropping anonymous donations for her at the hospital, but his true intentions became sinister when the full scope of his plan unraveled.

After accumulating wealth through criminal means, he bought the entire hospital, appointed his mother-in-law as board chairperson, and made the unsuspecting doctor the sole administrator.

Through Inspector Mo’s investigation (another important character whose detective work reveals the web of corruption), we discover that the hospital is just a front to launder Efe’s ill-gotten Yahoo money, just as Oboz’s spare parts company fronted his real criminal business.

The doctor, who had shown him compassion in his hour of need, unknowingly became an accomplice to money laundering.

When trapped and confronted with the reality of her situation, Efe coldly informed her it was too late to withdraw from the scheme, essentially threatening that if he went down, she would follow. What a calculated and cruel way to repay humanitarian assistance!

His Children

They say a father’s love for his children is second to none, that fathers will go lengths for their children. However, in ‘To Kill a Monkey,’ we begin questioning what type of father Efemini is when he cannot guarantee his family’s security.

Through Ivie, we already doubt his ability to avoid being a deadbeat father. When Teacher, the movie’s main antagonist and an ‘old taker’ who insisted on 30% of the ‘monkey business’ spearheaded by Efe and financed by Oboz began targeting his family, that crossed an unacceptable line.

When Teacher’s boys placed one of Efemini’s surviving triplets in a freezer, nearly killing the child, that should have been the moment he quit the business.

The decision he eventually made to cut his losses and leave with his family at the movie’s end should have been made then.

Considering that Efe had accumulated enough wealth to afford a Rolex worth approximately 30 million naira, as Oboz pointed out during one of their heated confrontations, he could, like any serious father would have prioritized his family’s safety, securing them beyond Teacher’s reach, just as Oboz had done by sending his children abroad.

Instead, Efe left his family exposed, allowing Teacher to place a severed head in his son’s school bag and his mother-in-law to become a casualty of their ‘war.’

We should also mention the instance where his daughter was nearly killed but was saved by her mother’s fierce resistance and the intervention of a doctor (who will later become Nosa’s lover) against Teacher’s assassin.

Amanda Sparkles

Many erroneously attribute to William Shakespeare the phrase, “Heav’n has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

This quote from William Congreve’s “The Morning Bride” perfectly describes Amanda Sparkles’ quiet, methodical, and precise ‘strike’ on Efemini and the subsequent crumbling of his life, as we witness at the movie’s end.

One would expect that having found a woman who stood by him during his worst times, helped him navigate difficult periods, and provided direction, Efemini would remain loyal to her…loving her enough to include her in his plan to finally ‘disappear’.

The argument suggests Amanda was actually one of Teacher’s agents, sent on a mission to work on him. This is correct. Just as Efemini had his agenda for Amanda, she was on a mission for Teacher.

But something happened along the way: Amanda fell in love with Efe. Despite being a professional, to the detriment of her mission and against her lifelong vow that no man would take advantage of her, she became pregnant for him.

Efe, now accustomed to betraying people, saw little reason not to use Amanda and discard her. Understandably, when Teacher arrived to gloat and evict her from the house he had provided for her mission, showing her Efe’s flight manifest that included his wife and children but not her, she became angry.

More importantly, she calculatedly exerted a revenge that will make even the devil very proud.

Nosa Edewor

First, kudos must be paid to Stella Damasus for expertly executing the Nosa Edewor role. Many assumed that Nosa failed her husband in the movie.

Their reasons range from Nosa denying Efe his conjugal rights, to taking up drinking (a habit that impaired her relationships), and attempting to run away with the twins, not to mention the unforgivable act of having an affair with our aforementioned doctor.

While I understand this reasoning, I believe there are plenty gaps that need addressing. From the movie’s onset, we are left in no doubt about Nosa’s undeniable love for her husband. Efe entered the marriage carrying plenty of ‘baggage.’ First, he was a single father to Ivie.

While the circumstances of Ivie’s birth were never revealed, we can agree that a broke, underemployed single father is not ideal marriage material.

Yet Nosa loved him, married him, carried the family on her shoulders as best she could, and became pregnant for him.

While many argue she ‘pushed’ him toward a life of crime, the reality is that she wanted him out when she realized there was more to Oboz’s job offer than met the eye.

With her husband’s job increasingly endangering them and his absences growing longer, she first sought solace in alcohol, then in the arms of our good doctor.

If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll agree that the wife’s animosity and resentment toward her husband began building when their daughter was ‘refrigerated’ by Teacher.

By this time, we realize he was no longer present in his family’s life as he should be, driving his wife to the bottle.

As a husband, Efe failed his wife by not protecting their children or removing them from harm’s way. His wife’s mother also paid the ultimate price of the skirmishes with Teacher.

He also cheated on his wife ‘with good reasons’. First, he slept with his female boss, Ms. Adunni, while working at a restaurant because he needed to borrow N50,000 for his wife’s maternity bills. With Amanda Sparkles, the argument is that he wanted to use her to reach Oboz and make him jealous, since Oboz had wanted her but couldn’t have her.

Whatever the case, we can agree that Efe’s newfound wealth drove a wedge between him and his wife. The precious, happy home that poverty and his unsympathetic mother-in-law’s sharp tongue couldn’t break, wealth and affluence destroyed.

Obozuhiomwen ‘Oboz’ Da Boss

Oboz Da Boss—now that’s a character worth analyzing. Played by the enigmatic Bucci Franklin, many feel this character failed Efe.

Let’s establish some facts: Oboz is an underworld kingpin, a criminal, an uneducated crime lord running a criminal empire built on numerous vices, chiefly operating a gang of Yahoo boys who must undergo initiation rites to work for him.

Oboz is that person who lives by the sword and understandably died by it. He was that devil you would require a really long spoon to dine with.

Despite these attributes, this devilish Oboz was a honoruable man than Efe. In fact, he possessed almost everything Efemini lacked. Many Efemini proponents argue that Oboz first betrayed Efe by having an affair with his ‘brotherly’s daughter, Ivie.

While this argument may appear sound, one must quickly dismiss it for one reason: both Oboz and Ivie were consenting adults in a mutual relationship.

Without moralizing, Ivie was 24, no longer a child by any definition. If she chose to pursue a relationship with someone nearly her father’s age, that was her prerogative.

The least we can do is stop ‘moralizing’ Oboz’s relationship with Ivie, in a society where infidelity is barely frowned on, where we have “small girls with big gods,” sugar babies with sugar daddies old enough to be their grandfathers.

If Efemini wasn’t present as a moral compass during his daughter’s formative years, arriving late to her adult life is like crashing a breakfast party at dusk.

To extend this point, the great Biafran Warlord, late Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, married Bianca, daughter of his friend Christian Chukwuma Onoh (CC Onoh). Heaven didn’t fall. They were two consenting people who chose marriage.

Beyond the relationship’s morality, Oboz ended things with Ivie when Efemini confronted them both. True to his word, he never returned to Ivie but kept apologizing to his ‘brotherly.’

He apologized about three to four times throughout the movie.

Back to how he failed him, as a beneficiary of Oboz’s magnanimity, Efe who had promised never to betray Oboz ended up serving him up to Teacher.

I believe Oboz who had survived numerous violent encounters and fortified himself with charms, could have escaped death that night. Believing his ‘brotherly’ was in mortal danger since he was protected, Oboz rose to defend Efemini rather than his equally endangered boys.

Holding his charm and ordering Efe to get behind his human shield, he was shocked to see his ‘brotherly’ abandon his back and join their attackers.

The betrayal’s shock made the charm fall from his hands. He remained oblivious to this, even as the first of many bullets struck him.

Many argue Efe had no choice with Teacher threatening him and his family. However, that is not true.

There is always a choice. He could have confided everything to Oboz, just as Dr. Nwaeze confided in him when Inspector Mo ‘arm-twisted’ her to give him up or face criminal charges.

As a lifelong criminal, Oboz has had experience with such situations and had survived. Ab initio, he refused to bargain with Teacher because he knew that in the criminal world, bargaining showed weakness and created opportunities for exploitation. Efe, feeling threatened, merely saw this as Oboz’s reluctance to share money.

Two ]situations in the movie proved this: First, after delivering Oboz to Teacher, Teacher increased his demand from 30% of the Monkey Business to 80%.

Understandably, Efe had hoped that with his erstwhile brotherly out of the way, he could keep the lion’s share while giving Teacher the initially requested 30%. Second, from Efe’s narration toward the movie’s end, Teacher had attempted similar tactics with another criminal outfit, and they responded in the underworld’s preferred currency: they killed him and hung him from a building’s roof.

Efemini “Efe” Edewor

There’s almost nothing spectacular about Efe’s character. He’s no different from your average Nigerian. In describing the typical Nigerian, late Pini Jason Onyegbaduo, a popular columnist, propounded a “Hypothesis of Corruption.”

He roughly divided the average Nigerian into two categories: the ruling wicked and the waiting wicked. In essence, Jason’s Law of Corruption states:

“The decibel of an average Nigerian’s public outcry is directly proportional to his distance from the opportunity to do exactly what he condemns.”

Jason’s Law further states: “The difference between many a vociferous, sanctimonious, and pontificating Nigerian and the villainous, itchy-fingered kleptomaniac is probably the absence of opportunity to steal.” Jason’s Law concludes:

“In all probability, should the opportunity occur, yesterday’s moral crusader is more likely to crumble and disappear under corruption’s weight.”

Jason’s corruption hypothesis has never failed when applied to analyzing many Nigerians’ bizarre behavior, least of all Efemini’s. Efe could afford to sleep with Madam Adunni to borrow N50,000 but not accept Oboz’s job offer because it involved internet fraud.

This would have been commendable if not for the fact that barely 24 hours later, he returned to Oboz, not only offering to work but proposing much more…the Monkey Business.

Like Pini Jason’s postulation, Efe could condemn internet fraud until he had access to the kind of ‘structure’ Oboz could provide.

Efe entered the criminal world to rescue his family from poverty’s clutches but couldn’t leave after wealth’s allure consumed him. He became almost everything he had condemned.

He even found it difficult to believe he had become the type of criminal Oboz was…a fact his wife, Ivie, and Oboz didn’t fail to remind him of.

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He betrayed his morals, as his actions would understandably lead to suicides, depression, and other consequences among his defrauded victims.