Aba women’s riots made into new film, 1929

Poised to preserving some of the nation’s historical antecedent, Viensa Productions in collaboration with Filmone Distribution have come together to represent a great time of Nigerian women in a new film titled 1929.

The movie 1929 is about the Aba Women’s Riot. The true life story is a focus on the Ikot Abasi women’s unrest of 1929 that claimed the lives of many women protesters across the eastern part of Nigeria.

Directed by Moses Eskor, it features Sola Sobowale, Ireti Doyle, Sam Dede, Becky Odungide, Enobong Ekwere, Ndifreke Umoren, Nancy Bassey Uduak Odungide, Ngozi Okeke, and Nene Antai among others.

The women’s war, or Aba Women’s Riots as called was a period of unrest in British Nigeria over November 1929. The revolt broke out when thousands of Igbo women from the Bende District, Umuahia and other places in eastern Nigeria traveled to the town of Oloko to protest against the Warrant Chiefs, whom they accused of restricting the role of women in the government.

The Aba Women’s Riots of 1929, as it was named in British colonial records, is more aptly considered a strategically executed anti-colonial revolt organised by women to redress social, political and economic grievances.