How Nollywood is Teaching the World About the Igbo Apprenticeship System

“The film is nice,” says Sylvester, a nwa boy (apprentice) who works at a shop in Ebute Metta, Lagos, helping to maintain and sell refurbished air conditioners. “I’ve been in Lagos since January last year. I joined my oga (boss) on his trip back from Ozara [Imo State],” he tells OkayAfrica in pidgin english. Sylvester says he had stopped school at the end of Junior Secondary, obtaining his junior WAEC [West African Examinations Council] certificate.

After talking to some friends, he felt that coming to Lagos to work as an apprentice was a great opportunity, because he could immediately start helping his poor family with his earnings as a nwa boy, and eventually when he becomes his own boss. When asked how well Áfàméfùnà portrays the life of an nwa boy, Sylvester says the depiction, “is very good.”

In the film, Áfàméfùnà is brought to Lagos by his mother, moving from a town in Eastern Nigeria to become an apprentice under the hugely successful Odogwu, an Igbo entrepreneur who made his wealth selling building materials. A young Áfàm (Nnadiekwe Paul) joins several other apprentices, learning the business as a newbie, growing into a diligent, trusted worker, and eventually getting “settled” by Odogwu in order to strike out as his own businessman.

A love triangle between Áfàm (Stan Nze), mentor-turned-extorter Paulo (Alexx Ekubo) and Odogwu’s daughter Amaka (Bridget Johnson), which also involves blackmail and murder, provides the dramatic tension that helps the storyline unfurl.

Like many who’ve watched the film, Sylvester is baffled by Odogwu’s decision to settle Afam before Paulo. “If that happened to me, I’d have been angry, but I wouldn’t abandon my boss just like that. Because settlement is very important,” he says. For him, being a nwa boy means submitting to your master’s orders and discretion, and he believes coming through the ranks is what has made the Igbo apprenticeship system such an important part of making the Igbo tribe a financial force in business.

In recent years, the Igbo apprenticeship system has garnered international recognition, with business-oriented individuals and institutions intrigued by the mentorship system that has created millionaires. “The key focus of IAS is to prevent poverty by mass scaling opportunities for everyone,” Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe wrote in a detailed article for the Harvard Business Review, exploring the system as a “Nigerian model for stakeholder capitalism.”

“This is a system for people that don’t go through the regular school system, an alternative path where they learn a trade,” entertainer and entrepreneur Tobechukwu Ejiofor tells OkayAfrica. “Some make it, some fall by the wayside. For those that make it, they get some money to become their own bosses, it’s called freedom. Or they don’t settle you at all if you stole from the business or you fought with your oga.”

A Nigerian rap icon who records and performs under the moniker Illbliss, Ejiofor’s music (and general endeavors) carries the swaggering, world-beating spirit affiliated with Igbo people. Across eight studio projects, his self-reverential Oga Boss persona leans into that entrepreneurial verve, spawning classic hit songs like “40FT Containers” and “Bank Alert.” On his new album, Sideh Kai, he’s as imperial as ever, rapping with the force of a successful individual who still has ambitions that drive him — the hallmark of most, if not all, businessmen.

Ejiofor is also the co-executive producer of Freemen, Showmax’s documentary series digging into the Igbo apprenticeship system. In seven episodes, the series features interviews with several Igbo business magnates, including Cosmas Maduka, the founder of Coscharis Motors, Obinna Iyiegbu aka Obi Cubana, and many more. Partly narrative, it also carries viewers through the adoption of a new nwa boy, and also through the stages of settlement.

Working with fellow executive producer and series director, Daro Umaigba, Freemen is an extensively detailed exploration of the apprenticeship system. “We had a research team and we wanted to tell an authentic story,” Ejiofor says, citing the logistical issues with traveling across Nigeria and scheduling interviews with incredibly busy businessmen. “It was difficult getting these men, because these are the pillars of the Igbo apprenticeship system. These are men that stopped at primary five [grade school] and today, they’re collectively worth over $18 billion.”

Áfàméfùnà: An Nwa Boi Story and Freemen are putting a spotlight on an important and influential part of contemporary Igbo culture. The film and the docu-series link the apprenticeship system to the Nigeria-Biafra civil war that happened between June 1967 and January 1970. It’s estimated that over a million people died on the combat fields, in genocidal attacks and through starvation. After the war ended, the government of Nigeria allotted £20 pounds (equivalent to about $482.50 today) to every Igbo person with a bank account, regardless of how much they previously had or the value of their properties in non-Eastern states.

“The success of this apprenticeship system was fuelled by all of the losses we incurred during the civil war,” Ejiofor tells OkayAfrica. “The Igbos were the richest tribe, controlling a lot of trade and finance in many places in Nigeria, and after the war, we lost everything. They say Igbo people like money too much but the truth is that no other tribe in this country has gone through the kind of setback that we went through.”

Both Áfàméfùnà and Freemen don’t dwell on the war, choosing to exhort the resilience and resourcefulness of the Igbo people after going through a tragedy. “The Igbo business empire is built on hard work and brotherhood,” Odogwu tells Áfàméfùnà in his monologue. “The Igbo business collapsed after the war. Áfàméfùnà, the war did something to us. War is bad; Igbos do not steal, Igbos do not beg.