Chude Jideonwo on Making Awaiting Trial
Journalist and media entrepreneur Chude Jideonwo discusses documentary Awaiting Trial and the need for continued fight against injustice
When I saw Chude Jideonwo’s Awaiting Trial I was moved by the stories. A woman searching and seeking justice for her brother who had been unjustly incarcerated and possibly murdered in custody. A man angry at Nigeria for the many years he spent in prison without any charge. A woman who had been sexually abused by the members of the Nigerian police force because she wanted to secure her brother’s release. A father mourning a son killed by the police during the #EndSARS protests. All heartbreaking stories. Heartbreaking stories about police brutality.
In October 2020, young people across Nigeria carried placards and took to the streets of their cities to protest brutality by the Nigerian police, especially by its now defunct (at least on paper) rogue unit SARS (for Special Anti-Robbery Squad). The Nigerian government rather than hearken to the demands of its citizens responded with more brutality. Young people at the protests were beaten, teargassed, arrested, and shot at, culminating in the massacre on the 20th when young Nigerians protesting at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos were shot and killed by Nigerian Army officers.
Some of these stories I knew prior to watching Awaiting Trial. But to watch the survivors and loved ones of the victims recount their tragedies saddened me even more. I was especially moved by the story of the woman who had submitted to sexual abuse in order to have her jailed brother released. I worried about not just how traumatic that was for her but the possible stigma she could endure from family, friends, and neighbours for sharing her story.
I tweeted about it and I got assured by one of the subjects of the interview that Jideonwo had done due diligence. I’ve been an admirer of Jideonwo’s work. His heartfelt interviews often with Nigerian celebrities let us into the other side of their lives. Stories of heartbreak, trauma, regrets, and grief are shared and Jideonwo navigates those difficult conversations with empathy, without judgment, providing comfort to his subjects.
When the opportunity came to interview Jideonwo, I thought to commend him for the boldness of Awaiting Trial but also draw out his thoughts on the objective for making it and what he had hoped to accomplish seeking to hear from James Nwafor, the infamous former operation commander of Awkuzu SARS. This is how our conversation went:
It’s been two years since End SARS. Articles have been written. Documentaries have been made on End SARS and police brutality in Nigeria. Almost every Nigerian has a police brutality story to share. Why was making another documentary on the subject important?
When I am doing work that’s important to me, I do not first check what other people have done. I just decide that this is the story I want to tell and tell it. And you know, when it comes to important cultural milestones in any serious country’s life, people can continue to engage on that subject ad infinitum. I think END SARS is one of those things that will continue to fascinate storytellers for decades to come.
Second thing is, the work that I do tries to tell the emotional story. That’s really what I am about. I have always been fascinated by the lack of emotional engagement with many of the important milestones in Nigeria’s national life. Something happens, my question is how do we feel about it? I don’t think we, Nigerians, are good at feeling. Because we are so tired of surviving, we go to intellectualize it. We start to attack each other by the force of our thoughts. Those two reactions become extreme that we forget to feel. How does this make us feel as a country? Does it make us want to cry? Does it make us want to scream? Does it make us want to jump?
When I heard Obianuju’s voice at the protest in 2020, I was haunted by it for a long time. She kept saying at the protest “for the sake of a mother, for the sake of a brother.. please do not stop. Please do not stop.” And I thought this was one of the emotional hearts of the protest. Obianuju’s tears. Obianuju’s ongoing heartbreak. This is how helpless we feel. Don’t forget this story. It cannot be forgotten. And so I wanted to tell the emotional story of the end-sars movement but also to signal that another end-sars movement is going to happen soon because the deeper illness is awaiting trial as a phenomenon.
Watching the documentary I thought about the families and how difficult it must be for them to relive their trauma each time a journalist comes knocking and with no guarantee of justice or closure in the end. But something I liked about this documentary was that it had a feeling of intimacy and it just, I think, allowed some of the subjects to share more than they would have, especially the Iloanya family, if they were interviewed by someone else. How were you able to achieve that?
That’s a difficult question to answer because I have gotten similar feedback from those who watch my show. They ask stuff like what makes people cry on your show. And I have thought about it. The only answer I can come up with is, I am an emotional person. In my old home, I had what I used to call the therapist's chair because when people came into the house they just automatically sit there and will just start telling me their deepest, dearest things and many of them would end up tearing up. I wasn’t doing a show then, I was just talking to people human to human. I think what it is is that I know how to empathise. It just comes naturally to me. I think there is just a natural propensity for me to care about people. And I think when I am talking to my interview subjects, even the most cynical of them, I think they can feel that I genuinely care. And I also try not to push people to share anything with me. I am constantly saying, are you comfortable sharing that? So asides from seeing that I care, they trust me because I create systems for trust. I stop them if I think that is too personal, I check in with them, are you sure you want to share that? I assure them. I keep my promises that if there is anything they shared that they are uncomfortable sharing with the public later, I will keep it away from the public. So I think it is those two things.
Yes. I have always gotten that feeling too from your interviews. I find them endearing. Also, watching I had to tweet about the woman who you had not even planned to interview and she just came into the frame, or rather her voice came into the frame and she narrated this horrific experience of having to sleep with the officers to secure her brother’s release. One of the other women had to hush her “you are married and pregnant, this is going on AIT?”
I was worried about the possible stigma and judgment she would face when relatives or close acquaintances learn about that because according to her, she had never shared it with anyone. Did sharing it bother you?
Absolutely. I had confirmed with her multiple times before sharing it. But there was also a part of me that was worried about her regretting it later. But this is also what I balance it with:
I say this all the time, many Nigerian intellectuals live in a bifurcated kind of cultural space where their influences are mostly western. More than Nigerian. They spend a lot of time watching American movies, watching American documentaries, watching American content, and sometimes that is why they struggle to understand the local audience because many people are trying to escape the shackles of their families. Their families were intrusive. Their families were noisy. Their families were bullies. They found escape in Western art. Sometimes they forget how we navigate trauma as Nigerians. Here is what I mean, America has a confessional culture. That has spread into Europe. Europe has a more restrained… still confessional culture. Large swathes of Nigerian society don’t have confessional cultures. People are choked up and want to breathe. They want to talk. They want to be heard. They feel like their stories don’t matter. And so in our society, many people.. when they speak it out, then they feel like their life matters. Their voice matters. Their story matter.
Now, I am not speaking about specifically this woman’s case. Because I can’t speak for her. But I am extrapolating from my time spent on the street. People feel like their stories are hidden in darkness and when their stories are hidden in darkness, it means that their stories don’t matter. We are at a point in our culture and I am so privileged to be doing this work at this point in our culture where the stage we are is to excavate these stories and give people hugs and say I see you. I understand you.
One interesting angle this documentary took was the search for CSP James Nwafor but even though that yielded no results, I’d like to know why you thought it was necessary to hear from him. Also, I’ve been wondering what are some of the questions you were going to ask him if you did meet him.
That’s an interesting question. Thank you for asking it. I am a misfit in the current cultural space because I do believe in hearing both sides. But that doesn’t mean both sides have equal validity in any story. It just means that you need to hold space even for alleged oppressors. You don’t have to believe what they say. You can still reserve judgment on what they say but listen to them first. I am a mediator of stories. I will ask you the tough questions and allow the viewer to make up their minds. That was important to me. And if CSP Nwafor gets to see this interview, I am sure his thought was that I was coming to antagonise him but I don’t know that that was my plan. I just wanted to ask him very honestly, why did you do this? And why didn’t you show up at the panel? Honestly, I don’t know if what I was presenting to him was an opportunity borne out of the benefit of the doubt. And I was going to go to him with Obianuju Illoanya. Obianuju is the most courageous human I have ever met. She was ready to go with me. She had things to say to this man who had allegedly taken her brother’s life.
One of my favourite interviews of all time is the one ABC did with Jeffrey Dahmer where he was just methodically explaining how he fathoms killing people. I thought that what he did was give a gift to psychoanalysts, criminal justice experts, lawyers, judges, to investigators as to how this kind of crime occurs. And so what I want to understand is how humans like me and you kill people and throw them into the river. I don’t understand it. And so those are the questions I wanted to ask. I just wanted to understand sincerely what kind of institutions of wickedness allows murders to occur without accountability. That’s what I wanted to ask James Nwafor. And if he denies the allegations against him, I was going to confront him with the carefully researched facts, the report from the panel, and the lawyer statements from policemen under his command. “Here’s what the head of the panel said. They say you did it, so how do you respond to this set of provable facts?”
I think it takes fearlessness to do that. I mean this is a man who has been described as a monster. I commend you. But I’m also thinking about press stifling and how many who have told the #Endsars story have been beaten, arrested, or even killed. Journalists and non-journalists. And I know how this has disheartened many. So if I told you that I had a story that required some audaciousness to tell, an audaciousness I am yet to muster, what would you say to me?
Many years ago, Hilary Clinton said in an interview that she has a responsibility gene. I have an audacity gene. I have done crazy things in my life. I went alone to Chibok for a story I wanted to tell, just after the girls were kidnapped. But it's not just me. I ask myself sometimes what kind of madness possesses Fisayo Soyombo to go into prisons for weeks to investigate a story. What kind of madness possesses Nicholas Ibekwe to do some of the stories that he does? There are so many brave people in our society and I think many people are just made that way. And so your question is what would I say to you..? The mission has to be more important than the fear. And it is not that the fear isn’t there. And to be honest, sometimes, I wake up and I am afraid. What I have learnt to ask myself is Chude, does this issue matter enough to you? If I don’t, then there’s no need to take the risk. In situations where I care enough about the issue, I ask myself, if you face significant risk because of doing this, would you say that it was worth it? Sometimes I ask myself even if it means my life. I think we all have, I think even you, Dika, will have issues that are dear to you from your formative experiences. It may come from the way that you see the world. It may come from the tragedies you have seen in your younger years. This is to say that there are things that are important to you and when those issues… when you have the chance to explore those issues, to bring some light to those issues, you will find that it matters too much and you may conquer the fear in your heart.
This is very encouraging. I really like the point about the mission being more important than the fear. And this leads me to my final question: what is your objective with this documentary? Your mission.
I think my mission with this is that we must not forget. We cannot ignore. It’s really to remind us that this evil happened and justice is yet to be served and we must keep calling out the evil that happened. Let Nwafor not think this is over. Let the Anambra police force not think this is over. Let the killers of Jimoh not think this is over. Obianuju’s mum called me after the documentary was released. She was pleased with the work. And that was the most important review I’ve gotten. I left their home with a duty to amplify their voices and that became my mission. And so the objective is to remind us all that justice is yet to be served and we must keep on the fight.
Good interview.
Such a heavy story to tell and to even talk about but so important to do so .