A Cinematic Reflection on Nigeria’s Political Economy Using Nollywood’s Black Book as a Lens
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22201630 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Essien Oku Essien (0000-0002-2149-4527, Drexel University), Emmanuel Nyong Inyang (0000-0002-0588-6766, University of Cross River State), Jason Emeka Umahi (0009-0006-4038-3757, University of Calabar) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 800-825 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Changing Societies and Personalities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2587-6104 • E-ISSN: 2587-8964 |
| Publisher | Ural Federal University (PUBLISHER • RU) |
| DOI | 10.15826/csp.2025.9.3.354 |
| OpenAlex | W4415387896 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 22 |
In a nation where memory is contested and justice elusive, the cinema exists as both witness and warrior. This study undertakes a screen semiotic analysis of The Black Book (2023), a groundbreaking Nollywood political thriller directed by Editi Effiong, to explore how Nigerian cinema reflects and critiques the country’s turbulent political economy. Anchored in Nigeria’s socio-political realities, militarism, corruption, privatization, and elite impunity, the film is read as a complex cinematic text that interrogates the architecture of state power and moral agency. Utilizing screen semiotics as the primary methodology, the paper analyzes rhetorical tropes, modality, mise-en-scène, camera work, narrative gaps, and auditory codes to reveal how the film constructs a symbolic resistance to hegemonic state narratives. The study draws from foundational theorists such as Barthes, Metz, Hall, and Mulvey, applying their insights to African visual storytelling traditions. Particular attention is paid to themes of justice versus injustice, personal redemption, and institutional complicity, as well as the film’s connotative use of symbols such as books, churches, silence, and uniforms. This study positions The Black Book not only as a cinematic achievement but also as a political act, an artistic archive of Nigeria’s democratic contradictions, and a visual grammar of resistance for its uncertain future
Movie theater · Narrative · Politics · Rhetorical question · Semiotics · Storytelling · Witness · African history and culture studies
Rhetoric, Modality, Modernity
Concerning Violence
Corruption and Nigerian political economy
Nollywood
Postcolonial Artists and Global Aesthetics
Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa
Africa in the American Imagination
Small Screen Cinema
Oil Extraction, Dispossession, Resistance, and Conflict in Nigeria's Oil-Rich Niger Delta
Protectors or Predators? The Embedded Problem of Police Corruption and Deviance in Nigeria
Piccone's Fourth Dimension
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
Black African Cinema
The Power of Power—Questions to Michel Foucault
On the Postcolony
Political critique in Nigerian video films
Political clientelism and rural development in south-western Nigeria
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |