An ex-student of the prestigious university, Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU, Ile Ife, has charged film producer Kunle Afolayan for stealing her story and produciong it in the movie “Citation” without her consent.
The ex-student who goes by the name, Mrs. Utitifon Ekanem, has written a pre-litigation letter to Kunle Afolayan, saying he is profiting from her experience at the school by making it into a Netflix movie and failing to give her credit.
Mrs. Utitofon Ekanem, who was Miss Utitofon Hanson at the time, told newsmen that she endured sexual harassment from an associate professor at the Political Science Department, Dr. Sunday Akindele between 2004 and 2007.
She said Dr. Akindele was subsequently dismissed by the school authorities while she was celebrated as the first student in the history of the school to get a lecturer dismissed for sexual harassment.
Ekanem, who is now a teacher, further said that after the release of a Nigerian movie titled, ‘October 1’, she reached out to the Afolayan, who was the director of the movie, and broached the idea of producing a movie about sexual harassment in higher institutions and told him about her experience.
She claimed Afolayan told her that he would ask someone to contact her the next day. However, no one ever did. The teacher said she was therefore surprised when in 2020, she stumbled on a movie titled, ‘Citation’ which was based on her experience and directed by Afolayan who she had discussed the idea with five years earlier.
Ekanem said, “I called Kunle Afolayan sometime in 2015 and I told him I had a story on sexual harassment based on my experience in OAU and I said I wanted to make a movie out of the true story and he said someone would contact me and he gave me an assurance that someone would call me. Our conversation was for about two minutes.” READ ASLO: Movie Review: How “Citation” Shows The Right Path To Follow In Our Society Today
“This year, I started receiving calls from friends, telling me to watch a movie titled ‘Citation’ which was directed by Kunle Afolayan starring Temi Otedola. Temi Otedola, who was the victim of sexual harassment in the movie, was actually me in real life.”
She explained that the movie had only a few differences from her actual experience.
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