MKO documentary premieres in Lagos with Tinubu, cinemas Friday

Updated 10:35am WAT, Friday, 2 October 2026: MKO is now in Nigerian cinemas, and director Ose Oyamendan says the producers had to mortgage the film to finish it.

Updated 10:30pm WAT, Thursday, 1 October 2026: President Tinubu and the First Lady attended the premiere on Thursday evening; guest list added.

President Bola Tinubu and First Lady Oluremi Tinubu attended the premiere of the MKO documentary at the Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and the Creative Arts, the National Theatre in Iganmu, Lagos, on Thursday, 1 October, Vanguard reported that evening. Ose Oyamendan’s film is about Moshood Abiola and the annulled 12 June 1993 election.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio was in the audience, along with three governors: Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, Dapo Abiodun of Ogun and AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq of Kwara. Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, culture minister Hannatu Musawa and former Ogun governor Segun Osoba also attended, according to Vanguard and the Gazette. Nile Entertainment opens the film in cinemas across Nigeria on Friday, 2 October.

So on Independence Day, a president who campaigned against the annulment in the 1990s sat down to watch a film he also appears in. Channels TV listed Tinubu among the people interviewed for it. As of 10:30pm WAT, none of the reports GistMatrix checked quoted any remarks from Tinubu or the Abiola family at the screening.

What is the MKO documentary about?

MKO is about Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, the businessman widely believed to have won the June 1993 presidential vote before military ruler Ibrahim Babangida cancelled the result. Vanguard reports that the film follows the political crisis, his imprisonment and his death in 1998.

Babangida himself is one of the interviewees. So are former head of state Abdulsalami Abubakar, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, Abiola’s running mate Baba Gana Kingibe, the former US ambassador Walter Carrington, US diplomat Thomas Pickering and members of the Abiola family, according to Premium Times. The list also includes Theodore Zadok, who guarded Abiola during his detention.

“This is a story that belongs to Nigerians,” said Oyamendan, a Nigerian-American filmmaker based in Hollywood, according to Premium Times. Vanguard names the American filmmaker Mark Jonathan Harris, who has won three Academy Awards for documentaries, as a producer.

How much did the MKO documentary cost to make?

More than $1 million, and part of that is still owed. Oyamendan told The Sun, in an interview published on Friday, 2 October, that MKO took almost 13 years and that the money ran so short near the end that the producers gave up their stake to raise the rest. “We have a film we do not own because we had to mortgage it to gap financiers just to complete it,” he said.

He also told the paper that close to 800 hours of interviews and archive footage went into the 108-minute cut. Put another way, every minute on screen was chosen from about seven and a half hours of material. Oyamendan, who once worked at Abiola’s Concord newspapers, said he set out to keep his own biases out of the film, and that he wants to show it in schools, towns and villages as well as cinemas.

How did we get here?

Thirty-three years separate the vote and the film. These are the dates that matter:

• 12 June 1993: Nigerians vote. Abiola, of the Social Democratic Party, is widely believed to have won.
• 23 June 1993: Babangida’s government annuls the election.
• June 1994: Abiola declares himself president and is arrested, then held for four years.
• 7 July 1998: Abiola dies in detention, a month after the death of military ruler Sani Abacha.
• June 2018: President Muhammadu Buhari makes 12 June Nigeria’s Democracy Day and gives Abiola the national honour GCFR after his death.
• 12 June 2026: MKO has its first screening at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival in the UK, Premium Times reports.
• 18 September 2026: ThisDay reports that Tinubu will host the Nigerian premiere on 1 October.
• 1 October 2026: Tinubu, the First Lady, Akpabio and three state governors attend the Lagos premiere, Vanguard reports.
• 2 October 2026: the film opens in cinemas nationwide, the same day Oyamendan tells The Sun it was mortgaged to gap financiers.

The Lagos premiere fell on the 66th anniversary of independence, and the cinema run starts the next morning.

Where can you watch MKO in Nigeria?

MKO is showing now in Nigerian cinemas. Nile Entertainment released it nationwide on Friday, 2 October, according to Premium Times and Channels TV. When GistMatrix checked Silverbird Cinemas’ website at about 10:30am WAT on Friday, it listed MKO under Now Showing, rated PG, with a running time of 1 hour 48 minutes. Silverbird Cinemas Ikeja had already sold sessions on Thursday, 1 October.

It is one of five films Nile has lined up for October, between Agbara Nla: The Return on 1 October and East West Love on 9 October, according to the film site What Kept Me Up. As of 8:45am WAT on Thursday, no streaming platform had been announced for Nigeria.

What happens next

MKO is in Nigerian cinemas from Friday, 2 October, through Nile Entertainment. Its first box office number will come from the Nigerian chart for the weekend of Friday 2 to Sunday 4 October, and GistMatrix will add it once that chart is published.

FAQ

Who directed the MKO documentary?
Ose Oyamendan, a Nigerian-American filmmaker, directed MKO. It had its first screening at Sheffield DocFest in the UK in June 2026.

When is MKO showing in Nigerian cinemas?
Now. Nile Entertainment released MKO nationwide on Friday, 2 October 2026, and Silverbird Cinemas lists it as Now Showing, rated PG.

How much did MKO cost to make?
More than $1 million over almost 13 years, director Ose Oyamendan told The Sun on 2 October 2026. He said part of it is still owed and the film was mortgaged to gap financiers.

Is MKO on Netflix?
No streaming release had been announced for Nigeria as of 8:45am WAT on Thursday, 1 October 2026. For now it is a cinema release.

Will you be watching MKO in the cinema this weekend? Tell us in the comments.

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