Joel Benson’s Cinematic Lemonade in Mothers of Chibok
Yinka Olatunbosun
Not everyone thinks of beauty when Chibok is mentioned. But filmmaker Joel Kachi Benson dares to look again in Mothers of Chibok. The film opens with an establishing aerial shot of a village once plunged into grief a decade ago, when 276 schoolgirls were abducted in an unprecedented attack. Yet the camera also finds a quiet beauty: cornfields carefully tended by women, narrow paths carved through them by bicycles—the primary means of navigating the dusty, uneven terrain.
A gruelling 88-minute watch, the documentary follows four mothers—Lydia, Mariam, Ladi, and Yana—over the course of a farming season. It traces their struggle to fund their children’s education and healthcare through subsistence farming. Shot over three years, the film captures the rhythms of their daily lives, including the lingering absence of daughters who never returned. With no meaningful government support, the women cultivate corn and groundnuts despite meagre financial returns. From securing land to planting, harvesting, and transporting produce, they endure backbreaking labour, only to sell at deflated prices to exploitative middlemen. Yet even within this harsh economic reality, they remain resilient—committed to their children’s education and sustained, at times, by flashes of humour. One child, Ali—born in the aftermath of the abductions—must also contend with stigma and name-calling, navigating a long path toward acceptance.
At the Lagos premiere of Mothers of Chibok, held on Saturday, March 7, at Filmhouse IMAX, Lekki, Benson—an Emmy-winning director—and executive producer Joke Silva presented a work that pushes the boundaries of documentary storytelling. The film reframes Chibok, shifting the narrative from one of victimhood to one of enterprise and forward motion.
The event began with a “Meet and Taste” experience, where guests interacted with the mothers and sampled branded groundnut products—peanut paste, popcorn, and more—produced through their cooperative. Rather than revisiting the 2014 tragedy in broad strokes, the documentary remains closely attuned to the lives of its four subjects, foregrounding their groundnut enterprise as a means of sustaining their families. The premiere drew a high-profile audience, including diplomats from the United States and Denmark, policymakers, and Nollywood figures such as Stella Damasus and Ngozi Nwosu. The project itself has evolved into a structured agricultural initiative currently supporting nine women, with plans to expand to 100 in the 2026 farming cycle.
During the post-screening discussion, filmmaker Femi Odugbemi observed: “For more than a decade, the name Chibok has echoed across the world as a headline, a hashtag, a symbol. But what Kachi has done with this film is something far more powerful—he has restored humanity where the world once saw only statistics. He has turned a global news event back into what it has always been: a story of mothers, of families, of faith, of unbreakable endurance.”
Joke Silva echoed this sentiment, noting that the film restores a sense of humanity to Chibok. “It opens up an understanding of how these women have remained resilient, how they have fought back. What we need in any society are people who do not forget.” She described the mothers and their daughters as “dignified survivors” who continue to live with purpose, urging greater public support for their efforts to educate their children despite enduring hardship and trauma.
For Benson, the film is as much about perception as it is about documentation. “My intention was to make this place and these women visible in their beauty,” he said. “They fund education through farming, and if people support them, it becomes easier for them to educate their children. Last year, we worked with them to increase their harvest by 100 percent.
Now we are speaking to investors and developing end products—peanut butter, groundnut paste—to create value that returns to the community. It is important that when we think about Chibok, we do not think only of tragedy, grief, and pain, but also of enterprise, dignity, and the strength of womanhood.”
Mothers of Chibok began its nationwide theatrical rollout on February 27, 2026, and is currently showing in major cinemas across Lagos, including Silverbird Galleria and EbonyLife Cinemas, with screenings scheduled through the end of March, as well as in Ghana.
