
One of the most perplexing experiences I had as a student in a Nigerian public higher education institution was explaining the reality and nuances of being a student to Nigerians from a completely different demographic scope, as well as to those who were relatively unfamiliar with the Nigerian terrain. My overfamiliarity with these realities and their attendant consequences, such as social fatigue, likely contributed to my inexcusable failure to articulate a compelling argument. However, filmmaker Alain Kassanda certainly has no such problem as I have—perhaps because of not being emotionally attached or fatigued— as these realities were well captured in the refreshing observational documentary, Coconut Head Generation.
If anything, the filmmaker captivatingly expounds an argument that I have for long cowardly struggled to express: the massive discrepancy between the aspirations of a generation and the horrendous material conditions and broader socio-political hostility in which these aspirations are shaped. The documentary movie “Coconut Head Generation,” an observational look at the everyday struggles of studying and living in a Nigerian public higher education institution, reveals the existential problems caused by a repressive socio-political environment, and how these problems mirror the larger systemic challenges of the postcolonial Nigerian state.
Filmed during the famous EndSARS1 protests and its harrowing experiences, which had a profound psychosocial effect on youths, the documentary arrived at an opportune moment.
Constant struggle, youthful exuberance
The documentary begins with an epigraph that briefly describes the documentary’s setting, the University of Ibadan (UI), which is considered the birthplace of higher education and intellectualism in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa. That scene is followed by two scenes that contrasts the past and present worlds of UI—the first showing the first matriculation, and the second, the matriculation of the academic year the documentary was filmed. This epigraph establishes a thematic context for the movie. While UI establishes a micro context for the movie, the second line of the epigraph— a narrative about the Thursday Film Series (TFS), a student initiative that creates a safe space for stimulating conversations and debates—provides a macro setting for the various discussions in the movie.
As such, scenes in the movie oscillate between the classroom, the TFS hall, halls of residences, and the university community at large. Precisely because of this atmosphere, the movie is fully able to capture the lifeworld of the Nigerian student: a constant struggle to navigate the diverse everyday challenges of endemic socio-political situations that are not their creation but which they have become mostly affected by.
While the Coconut Head Generation gives a nice portrayal of campus life, it is through the various TFS scenes that we get a sense of students thirst and capacity to learn and engage with the big socio-political contemporary issues shaping Nigerian society, albeit through non-traditional ways of knowledge communication. These tendencies are evident through the debates that follow the various movie screening events at the TFS. These movies —African and French— capture issues that span colonialism, patriarchal ideology, sexuality, hegemonic power structures, and elections, all of which are emblematic of existential issues facing the African continent. Importantly, students engage these diverse social and political issues with youthful exuberance, vigour, critical perspectives, and divergent views, shaped by different ideological positions. These debates reflect preoccupations beyond the Nigerian context.
Homelessness and squatters
Thus, the TFS not only facilitated environments for stimulating exchanges of untraditional ideas but also created a climate for resisting hegemonic systems of repressive power. These characteristic features successfully penetrate the interiority of the expectation of an intellectual environment and give a fuller picture of what it means to forge social and intellectual relations within a university. Importantly, the tone of the debates from these TFS scenes also expressed the frustration that emerges when the ideas of the younger generation are rarely considered and never integrated with practical solutions to social problems.
Furthermore, the TFS provides insight into the structurally hostile conditions that embody students’ lived realities—horrible conditions against which they struggle and successfully thrive to achieve global intellectual and academic excellence and recognition. A University of Lagos student recounts these exasperating everyday realities in a photodocumentary, highlighting the bleak social conditions. One such photodocumentary captures students studying for examinations under the streetlights by the roadside due to a power outage in the university. Another picture depicted overcrowded rooms, designed for three students by default but occupied by at least six students —squatters.
Despite the numerous public health and legal consequences attached to squatting, it is considered a more acceptable survival mechanism/strategy, especially in the face of homelessness and displacement. The scarcity and overcrowding of affordable public spaces and the exorbitant cost of private hostels exacerbate the reality of imminent homelessness and displacement that students constantly grapple with on university campuses. Thus, students normalise squatting as a coping strategy to navigate their daily lives and experience homelessness and displacement on campus.
To confront and resist these oppressive power
As I watched this scene, it evoked chilling memories of my own experiences as a squatter and a ’squattee’ during various periods of my undergraduate and graduate studies programs, where I grappled with emotions of fear and anxiety. These experiences, as adroitly captured in the documentary, depict how students are victims of the absent state2, a pervasive phenomenon in postcolonial Africa that aptly explains the Nigerian state.
The Coconut Head Generation’s portrayal of the repressive power structures of Nigerian universities as well as the students’ ability to confront and resist these oppressive power dynamics and their entrenched symbolic violence stood out to me. Scenes aptly encapsulate the circumstances surrounding the University Senate’s suspension of the university’s Student Union Government (SUG) President due to demands for student identity cards. The university delayed the issuance of personal identification cards for two academic sessions, which resulted in security agencies occasionally harassing students due to their inability to identify themselves. The SUG president’s clamour and demand for the release of these cards resulted in him incurring the ’wrath’ of the university senate and his subsequent suspension.
For someone like me, who has witnessed the extent to which public higher institutions display power against students, the narrations in Coconut Head Generation provide a timely and disturbing reminder of the level of institutional decay besetting higher educational institutions. Furthermore, by narrating these stories, the documentary demonstrates how university leadership creates a threatening discourse and image surrounding SUGs, which instills fear and paranoia in students, leading them to live in silence out of fear of reprimand and discipline. Universities intuitively use their co-option, containment, and control power to discipline students into compliance and conformity with stringent policies.
EndSARS and the unfulfilled aspirations
The documentary effectively dispels two prevalent narratives in the media and among foreign donors, about youth and students in Nigeria. The first narrative limits the efficacy of youths and students to only violent repertoires, emphasizing their restiveness and devaluing their non-violent importance due to their physical strength. The second narrative portrays youths and students as irrational actors who lack agency, require guidance, and exhibit stubborn assertiveness. The deftness of the TFS, particularly in selecting movies, deconstructs these narratives by igniting stimulating debates and conversations on crucial socio-political issues. Thus, the documentary challenges the popular perception of youths as irrational, abrasive, and restless, instead portraying them as rational, lucid yet firm.
Despite the documentary’s achievements, I found it baffling how much attention it pays to the EndSars, given the importance of the issue to both the documentary’s subjects and its title. I find it frustrating that the documentary treats this section hastily, providing no background or context. Considering that the documentary’s central theme revolves around the perpetuation of structural and physical violence in various forms, this approach seems somewhat counterintuitive. The documentary’s unimpressive coverage of the EndSARS moment is even more puzzling given that it represented and signalled a defining moment for the main protagonist’s social demography and generation. EndSARS not only brought to light the collective frustrations of youth, but also demonstrated their capacity to mobilize and demand systemic change. However, a significant portion of these demands remain unfulfilled, thereby exacerbating the unfulfilled aspirations of the generation.
Despite these challenges, the documentary Coconut Head Generation is a must-watch for anyone seeking to comprehend the realities, peculiarities, and subtleties of studying in a Nigerian public higher education institution. Therefore, just as the documentary’s epilogue suggests, if being coconut-headed means steadfastly opposing mediocrity, oppressive power structures, sexual exploitation, and gender subjugation, then it’s a commendable label to adopt, and we can all take pride in embodying it and be proudly coconut-headed!
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1In 2017, EndSARS began as an internet hashtag advocating for the abolition of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a Nigerian Police Force unit accused of widespread human rights abuses such as extortion, torture, and extrajudicial killings. This hashtag gained momentum and evolved into a protest movement in October 2020, advocating for broader socio-political systemic change.
2The notion of the absent state is used in relation to the social service provision/material function of the state in which it has been found wanting contrary to its very present status in maintain dominance and control over citizens.