Tony Okuyeme
Principal photography on ‘The Hijack 93: The Mad Men & The Aircraft’, a movie based on the true-life story of the 1993 plane hijack, is set to take off.
The movie, ‘The Hijack 93’, is an unequalled creative mission by two of the most prolific film production companies in Nigeria, Play Network Studios and Native Media TV, in collaboration with UK-based filmmaker, Femi Oyeniran.
The movie is based on true life story on how in 1993, four self-proclaimed ‘MAD Men’, Nigerian teenagers championing the Movement for the Actualisation of Democracy (MAD), found themselves on board an aircraft heading to Abuja from Lagos. Midway into the travel, the MAD Men overpowered both crew and passengers, and hijacked the plane.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this plane has been taken over by MAD Men; Movement for the Actualization of Democracy… MAD…. Remain calm, we will not harm you. You will be told where the plane will land” (Hijack 93).
After several attempts to coerce the pilot to reroute the flight to Frankfurt, Germany, in a protest showing their dissatisfaction for the series of events that followed the June 12 elections that democratically elected Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, MKO Abiola, as the Nigerian president-elect, they explored the option of landing the plane at Niamey, Niger Republic, where they held the plane hostage for 70 hours with demands to enthrone democracy in Nigeria.
A multiple award-wining filmmaker and CEO of Play Network Studios announced his initiative to create a movie based on this true-life story.
Okpaleke announced via his social media saying: “I’ve just approved the final draft of this exciting thriller, and my team and I are set to commence principal photography.”
His comments were met with responses filled with excitement and encouragement from friends, acquaintances and well-wishers, far and wide, locally and internationally.
According to him, the co-production, largely supported by the UK Government Department of International Trade (DIT), who have been actively seeking and facilitating UK-Nigeria co-productions in the film & TV space, and the British Film Institute (BFI), “aims to tell this legendary African story through the prism of motion pictures. The co-collaborators find this project most expedient for encouragement because they acknowledge that what happens to us is our story, and the stories we tell become our history. The story of the African person must be told and defined by Africans.”
