“One cannot be playful in dangerous situations,” warns the hero of this freewheeling political comedy, but the work of director Tunde Kelani, leading auteur of the burgeoning Nigerian video industry, proves otherwise. The sequel to Kelani's successful satire Saworoide opens with the search for a new king of Jogbo after the fall of the old military regime. Corrupt chiefs install retired policeman Bosipo in the top office, expecting him to support their platform of “reform”-that is, more of the same: pillaging natural resources and appropriating public funds for personal gain. But these would-be Machiavellis find that their prince has other ideas; the new king invokes the rituals of the past to point the polity toward a better future. As Variety's Ronnie Scheib wrote, Agogo Eewo “interlaces snatches of popular and traditional culture-intricate dances, children's rhymes, politico-religious incantations, tongue twisters...old songs, and domestic farce-into a plea for political sanity.”

Winner, Guinness Trophy, Nigerian National Film and Video Festival, 2003.