Eniola Badmus Achieves What Funkẹ Akindele Couldn't But On What Ground?

The appointment was a huge one for Badmus but on what ground?

That notable Nollywood actress, Eniola Badmus, first screened around the year 2000. Her neatly robust body and bulky cheeks caught us in both solid chagrin and awe. For those who were captured by her gaiety and slurring lines in most of her scenes, happiness gyrated their hearts. However, whoever sees that mirth knows it will not last forever before it brazenly quenchs and exists as a Masquerade saliva does. But that is not the point of writing today.

What rather struck me is that the same actress struggling to get her lines right has just risen above her “boss.” And by boss, it is meant to trace the career origin of Badmus as science believes that nothing comes out of nothing, everything emanates from something. Before Eniola Badmus was featured on fans’ TV screens, Funkẹ Akindele had been in existence for nearly five years. Akindele was featured in the sitcom I Need To Know movie series, from 1998 to 2002. Though, she hit the heyday of fame that year, taking her supposedly friend, Badmus, along, with Omo Ghetto and Jenifa’s diary was what translated her to be the boss.

Eniola Badmus Achieves What Funkẹ Akindele Couldn't But On What Ground? — Funke Akindele

Long before the above mentioned movies, Akindele remained a friend of our home screens. Especially during the time she, alongside Femi Adebayo, did that “Taye Taiwo” movie. All of us who were just growing up then loved the movie to our marrow. As in, “T Boy, T Girl.” In those days, even if Badmus had been somewhere, existing, we never heard of her until her new appearance in Omo Ghetto and Jenifa’s diary.

Badmus is, by all means, a sister to Akindele’s most senior movie career. Recently, Badmus, such a sister, has risen above her aunt. She rose, not to the position her aunt might be coveting, but to the position her movie aunt, Akindele, had never tasted before in all her life. Now, it is important to know that this article does not condemn Badmus’s appointment. It is only emphasizing what ground Badmus landed the appointment.

Moving forward, it was in 2022/2023 that Akindele ventured into politics and decided to deputize Abdulazeez Olajide also known as Jandor, the People’s Democratic Party Lagos State Governorship candidate in the outgone 2023 election. Akindele and Jandor failed to clinch the gubernatorial crown, as that Ogun-born citizen, Babajide Sanwolu snatched his second-time opportunity to lord Lagos again for four years.

Akindele and Jandor went home disgraced. It is not for Jandor, as he has been in the political setting, witnessing similar scenarios played out. So he knows such things abound. For Akindele, the defeat was one of the biggest blows. The election took a lot from her and gave her nothing. Not even, a pint of yoghurt or accolades. She was trolled, digitally abused and in the midst of this, had her six-year relationship, savoured with disparate, flimsily relinquished on the story wall of Instagram. JJC Skillz did his worst, leaving that woman battling with all the trauma she could. It was what Nigerian households often call “Breakfast.”

Against all odds, as it is in her Battle on the Buka Street and A Tribe Called Judah, it is clear Akindele is a woman undefeated. Probably, she was the one Singer Flavour referred to when he sang “Nwunye Odogwu,” who remains Flavour’s feminine persona that is undefeated in the song.

41-year-old Badmus has been in existence for so long. But she remains a sister to the 46-year-old Akindele who can be said was probably 80 per cent instrumental to helping Badmus get the publicity she now enjoys.

That being said, Badmus got a federal appointment to become the Special Assistant for Social Events and Public Hearings, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Nigeria, Tajudeen Abbas.

The appointment was a huge one for Badmus. Moreover, it remains questionable and causes a heated argument to ask what Badmus knows about Public Hearings. She studied Theatre Arts and Economics, separately. If there is any experience she has, that should be acting, trolling and social media influencing. Or maybe, a bit of a comedic nature. So, how would she function to give a piece of proper advice to the Speaker on Public Hearings? It is already understood what prompted the appointment but we’ll not discuss that. Meanwhile, whatever advice the Speaker will be getting, hopefully, it is not of the need to tighten Badmus’s supposedly haters and not to continue her nature of trolling now that she has risen above her boss.

Enoch Oyedibu

I am a writer and investigative journalist who specialises in literary criticism and underrepresented narratives. Among other publications, I have been featured in Business Day Nigeria, TheICIR, Platform Times and Daily Nigerian. Right now, I work as a full-time staff writer for Unconventional Magazine.