The story is essentially about aliens who have somehow missed their way and ‘crashed’ into earth’s atmosphere above Johannesburg in South Africa. The extraterrestrials are unable to get their massive hovering space ship working so are left stranded helplessly on earth. The controversy surrounding the film truly begins when Nigerians are shown to be facilitators in fraud in District 9. Illegal weapons trading, cat food scams (akin to drugs I’m guessing) and even inter-species prostitution; the Nigerians were doing it. The ring leader of the Nigerians is even called ‘Obasanjo‘ (or something sounding close); a name choice obviously inspired by ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo.

Interestingly, for a film that involves itself with touchy issues such as race and prejudice in the South African context, the only real political landmine that emerged was the singling out and negative labelling of Nigerians. This is a quite a shame because the film is actually quite good with a mature script, nice characters and plenty of action. Most significantly, it also successfully brings some sensitive issues to our consciousness without being excessively political or offensive – except of course the many Nigerians who are quite angry about it. Even though I don’t share this anger, I feel it is totally understandable that some people would feel offended. It appears to me that Neill Blomkamp, Peter Jackson and the rest of the production crew have deliberately chosen to pick on Nigerians for two reasons:

1. Nigerians already have a worldwide reputation for criminality
2. It is well known that Nigerians are often favourites to receive blame for delinquency in South Africa

District 9 is a fiction movie, but the political undertones and parallels are based on reality. The danger here is that a movie like this has the potential to reinforce the negative stereotypes towards Nigerians all over the world, even discrediting the majority honest and hard-working ones. We have also seen recently how the xenophobic feeling can have deadly consequences to foreigners in South Africa including Nigerians.  I feel that what the District 9 film makers did was to provide the audience with an easily recognisable ‘enemy’ for that role in order to give the film more credibility as being realistic. Everyone who has received one of those ‘419′ scam emails always purported to be from some Nigerian government official or bank chief  would almost immediately relate to this labelling of Nigerians as criminals. It’s a cheap shot that is even sadder considering that the actors used weren’t even speaking any real Nigerian language. They couldn’t even be bothered to choose a Nigerian name beyond the obvious surname of a popular ex-leader.

The shame for Nigerians doesn’t end there though. Prof. Dora Akinyuli, Minister for Information, has announced that the movie has been banned from showing in Nigeria because “…it portrays Nigeria in bad light”. It’s an extreme measure taken by what seems to be a clueless government. Do they not realise it’s only just going to generate more interest? That is not my issue with the government’s response anyway. My question to Aunty Dora & Co. is: why are they so suddenly obsessed with Nigeria’s image in the eyes of the world? They have been pushing this “rebranding the nation” very hard but seem to forget that the reputation of the Nigerian brand is in our own hands and not that of Hollywood directors or Sony Corporation. Maybe the brand-protection effort should be applied more on the Nigerian entertainment industry that constantly shows our indulgence with themes of witch-craft and desire to get rich by any means necessary.

Actually, maybe all this is a fuss about nothing. Maybe we need to watch the District 9 again and see that the heroes and villains in the film are not as obvious as one imagines. Perhaps the aliens, being the victims of hatred and oppression by humans, are the heroes. That would mean that the Nigerians could be seen as accomplices to the ‘good guys’? I for one can’t wait for District 10, or better still a Nollywood version called District 9ja. I already have some actors in mind.