Femi Odugbemi, Kadaria Ahmed’s series on Nigeria’s COVID-19 fight premieres Thursday

Kadaria Ahmed, media personality, and Femi Odugbemi, film producer, are set to premiere their documentary film on Nigeria’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The three-part project titled ‘Unmasked: Leadership, Trust and The COVID-19 Pandemic in Nigeria’, is billed for premiere on Channels TV on Thursday.

The premiere is scheduled for 5 pm on the TV station and would be aired at the same time on April 15 and 22.

According to Odugbemi, the project examines the country’s response to the pandemic using the experiences of many Nigerians and their struggle for survival.

“Exactly a year ago, we started work on this documentary film project. We filmed inside isolation centers, Intensive Care Units (ICU) in Lagos and Kaduna. We filmed in slums full of hungry and desperate people, we watched vacant-eyed almajiri children and mass funerals in Kano,” he told Eyes of a Lagos Boy.

“The documentary is a sober but riveting journey through Nigeria’s challenges as a nation in desperate times. It is an important film and we hope everyone gets a chance to see it.”

Also speaking, Ahmed said the project became imperative to assess the country’s leadership and trust issues on the part of the citizens amid the pandemic.

“The COVID pandemic was bound to test Nigeria given its soft underbelly of corruption, poor healthcare infrastructure, weak systems and an ever-increasing number of its population living below the poverty line,” she said.

“Last year was surreal and difficult. It was clear even before the first case that this would be a momentous period. Odugbemi and I set out to tell this story, to document this historical moment and tackle questions of leadership, governance and trust, which were brought to the fore by the pandemic and to which Nigeria needs to find the answers urgently. We experienced devastating losses including that of a team member while filming, so this is also a personal story.”

Watch the documentary’s trailer below: