Daniel Etim Effiong’s The Herd Holds a Mirror to Nigeria’s Kidnapping Crisis

There’s an adage, more like a prayer point, you would mostly likely hear from parents in morning prayers, before everyone sets out for the day: K’a ma rin nigbati ebi ba npa ona, which loosely translates to may we not walk when the road is hungry. It’s a plea so steeped in caution that often draws the loudest “amen.”

The road was hungry, ravenous even, the day Derin and Fola, stood at the altar and pledged themselves to one another. “Now, you are ready to step into a new chapter filled with joy and hope,” the priest proclaimed. Joy and hope.

This is the day of joy, the day of joy 

If he had known, perhaps he might have added a prayer for safe passage as they began their journey. Perhaps Derin (Genoveva Umeh) and Fola (Kunle Remi) themselves might have sought extra protection against whatever waited for them on the highway.

Yet they would not be alone in that vulnerability. Many who travel Nigeria’s roads know that even in a deeply religious country, where clerics pause to bless a vehicle and pray over its passengers, safety is never guaranteed. There is a chance that they would find themselves at the mercy of kidnappers, some who may force their victims into a fate with no return, others who hold them for ransom, or those whose motives take yet another, more uncertain form.

For Daniel Etim Effiong, this uncertainty is not an abstract idea but the seed of a story he has long wanted to tell. His desire took shape at a point when he felt completely spent by Nollywood, worn down by a career that no longer offered any fulfilment. At that crossroad, he had two choices: step away entirely or tell his own stories. “You tell the stories you like to tell, tell the stories that you feel that you deserve,” he said. “And that’s what I set out to do.”

“The Herd” landed at a moment of escalated kidnappings across Nigeria, particularly in the north-central region. Violent abductions, long a recurring threat, surged in frequency and boldness, turning routine travel, schooling and church gatherings into acts of risk. United Nations reports indicate that between November 17 and 30, no fewer than 402 people, mostly schoolchildren, were kidnapped across Niger, Kebbi, Kwara and Borno states.

The Herd began as a simple pitch: a man travelling to Ekiti to attend his best friend’s wedding is kidnapped, and his wife goes through unimaginable lengths to bring him home.

Its premise mirrors realities Effiong has lived through. At just one year old, his father was arrested by the military government and imprisoned for allegedly plotting against Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. His mother went through hell and high water to secure his release, only to pass away when Effiong was four during one of her journeys from Benin to the prison in Kano.

Yet for Effiong, it was not just fiction. When he was only a year old, his father was arrested by the military government and imprisoned for allegedly plotting against Ibrahim Babangida. His mother fought relentlessly for his release until she died when Effiong was four, during one of her trips from Benin to Kano prison.

After his father’s release in 1993, Effiong remembers the road trips they took — journeys from Lagos to different parts of the country that became a form of reclamation, precious for a child who had spent so much of his early life without his father. But today, the same roads that once held memories now carry risks he considers unthinkably fraught for his own children.

From the outset, Effiong intended for “The Herd” to move beyond surface-level entertainment. The film navigates violence and moral dissonance with urgency. A bride is widowed in seconds; a friend is confronted with choices that defy the boundaries of loyalty and sanity; families thrust into situations that feel surreal yet painfully familiar.

The narrative layers insecurity, prejudice and religious contradiction — bandits who pause for prayer, pastors doubling as organ traffickers, even a fleeting moment of identity shaming when Emeka (Emeka Nwagbaraocha) mocks Gosi’s inability to speak the Igbo language. These juxtapositions form the heart of the story: the rituals and identities people cling to, even as the structures around them fail.

Away from the forest, the film’s tension shifts to a quieter brutality. Adamma, (Linda Ejiofor Suleiman) races to raise the ₦50 million ransom, only to confront her in-laws’ caste prejudice because she is Osu. In desperation, she offers to end her marriage to secure their support. In a film that deals with violence and captivity, this socially sanctioned cruelty hits just as hard, showing how old hierarchies still define lives.

The film’s resonance has been unmistakable, topping Netflix charts in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, with viewers praising its unflinching depiction of contemporary Nigerian life.

I just finished watching “The Herd” on Netflix, that’s not just a movie it is someone’s reality as we speak . Read Original