To Adaego with Love sets a love story against the pain and horror of the Biafran War. The result is a well-intentioned but ultimately superficial attempt at revisiting the most devastating chapter of Nigerian history.
By Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku
There is no denying that Nollywood needs to tell more war stories. The power of cinema to reconstruct history, challenge narratives, and humanise those who lived through catastrophes cannot be overstated. And yet, cinema is cinema. Film demands more than an attempt. When a film wilfully adopts a sensitive subject and overtly intends an interrogation, then interrogate it must.
Enter Nollywood’s latest entry into the scanty and heavily censored war drama genre: To Adaego with Love (2025), Nwamaka Chikezie’s debut feature directed from a screenplay written by Brenda Ogbukaa-Garuba (Love and Life (2023); Sin (2025)).
Much like its genre predecessor, the late Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2014, adapted from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s acclaimed novel), To Adaego with Love sets a love story against the pain and horror of the Biafran War. The result is practically the same: a well-intentioned but ultimately superficial attempt at revisiting the most devastating chapter of Nigerian history.
This time, however, the tale is one of forbidden love between lovers on opposite sides of the war, about five years after the end of the war. Set in Enugu, once a Biafran capital before it fell, the film follows the love story of the eponymous Adaego Ezekwe (Chisom Agoawuike), a young Igbo school teacher, and Major Balarabe “Bala” Alkali (Adam Garba), a Northern Nigerian soldier deployed to the state to rebuild trust between the local Igbo people and the Nigerian government.
Bala’s assignment and his interest in Adaego both prove difficult, and expectedly so, considering the history. “The war might be over, but tempers are still high,” a superior officer reminds him early on in the film, warning him to act with caution. “The men here are territorial about their women,” another soldier emphasises. And as it just so happens, Bala’s biggest opposition in both cases is Adaego’s father, Chief Ezekwe (Bob-Manuel Udokwu).
Like Bala, who is inevitably clueless about the extent of the pain and distrust of the Igbo community he has been thrown into, Adaego, shockingly, spends a good part of the film seemingly oblivious to the political tensions, even though she definitely lived through the war. But her father, a respected chief and businessman, is rightfully still bitter about his people’s losses and the Nigerian government’s withholding of the tools of his trade seized during the war.
It is mostly through Chief Ezekwe that To Adaego with Love makes its case on its war-centred themes of dialogue and reconciliation, but the film is itself as non-committal as the Nigerian government’s efforts at reconciliation in the years after the war. To Adaego with Love teeters around the subject, reciting talking points and relying so much on repetition that it feels like screaming into an echo chamber, all while hiding behind the Shakespearean romance at its centre to the point of oversimplifying a major element of the historical conflict.
But even the romance is not nearly stirring enough for a tale of forbidden love. The stakes are objectively high, yet the film manages to not sell them. What starts off as a slow-burn romance, at least on Adaego’s part, suddenly rushes into overdrive, with too much of the story skipped over in favour of a disjointed third-act foray into the struggles of a “soldier’s wife”, with a back-and-forth exchange of letters that is more exhausting than endearing. In fact, that entire final act might as well be a different film.
Somewhere in all that is a musical of sorts. Adaego sings in church, Bala sings at a bar, and one occasionally crosses over to the other. As a result, To Adaego with Love features some interesting albeit sometimes poorly synced and sometimes excessively sentimental musical numbers, both original and pre-existing. Nelly Uchendu’s legendary “Love Nwantinti” makes a memorable appearance, and Onyeka Onwenu (of blessed memory), in what might be her final film performance, pours her heart into a soul-stirring rendition of a popular Christian song.
But even in its sound, To Adaego with Love does not fully commit. For a film that insists on music, music is so grossly underused, with the film suffering from inadequate scoring and an inattentive sound design that makes the numbers feel more like embellishment than organic elements of the story.
Performance-wise, Garba does some heavy lifting in carrying the romance opposite a not-quite-riveting turn by Agoawuike. But the best performances are delivered by the veterans, unsurprisingly. Udokwu captures the angst, anger, and deep hurt with a conviction that clearly comes from a personal place. Chioma Chukwuka Akpotha is criminally underutilised as Adaego’s mother. And Onyeka Onwenu is an absolute delight onscreen.
What To Adaego with Love achieves most convincingly is its production design and costume design. Here, the film’s restraint serves it well, ensuring a modesty that speaks to the economic and social loss in the aftermath of the war. If To Adaego with Love is not a rousing love story or a committed inquiry into the post-war wounds that still fester today, it is, at least, an aesthetically competent period piece that is visually aware of the circumstances of its setting.
Rating: 3/5
*To Adaego with Love premiered at the Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) 2025, where it won Best Feature Film and Best Screenplay.
Vivian Nneka Nwajiaku is a writer, film critic, TV lover, and occasional storyteller writing from Lagos. She has a master’s degree in law but spends most of her time watching, reading about and discussing films and TV shows. She’s particularly concerned about what art has to say about society’s relationship with women. Connect with her on X @Nneka_Viv