First Cause - Echelon Studios

A self-motivated schoolteacher will do all he can to stay alive after rejecting the love of his powerful, wealthy and attractive employer for the love of her crippled daughter suffering from acute low self-esteem.

It begins as a trip to the proprietress’ office to ask for a salary advance and a leave of absence to bury his late father when FRANK, 29 (Gabriel Afolayan) finds a generous dash, the leave of absence he desires, and a steaming romance with his boss wealthy and powerful LOUISA EKUNDAYE, 42. As the ‘forbidden romance’ threatens to grow beyond a mistaken flaw, Frank sues to end it, but the  boss will only accept his plea on the condition that he dates and marries her first daughter FATIMA, 25 (Jacquie Idimogu-the  gorgeous lady in the portrait  whom Frank has always admired each time he comes to her office). Frank accepts the queer condition. The boss adds that if he fails to win over her daughter, he must return to her. Knowing he has no reason not to win over such a dashing beauty, he accepts this too.

Upon his first visit, Frank will discover that Fatima is a cripple.  Not so sure if Madam intends to mock him, or trap him, he resolves to love the cripple instead of the wealthy and attractive wife of a senator-his boss. But Frank will soon faith-talk himself out of Fatima’s life when he keeps reminding her that each time he dreams of her he finds her walking with strong, healthy legs. Fatima, feeling pressured and scared of being abandoned later by someone she love, chooses to end the relationship. Unfortunately, Frank has thoroughly fallen in love with her. He will try every opportunity to get back to Fatima, but she will not give him the chance and her mother, who feels betrayed by Frank for not honouring their agreement, she decides to take him out.

To worsen matters, Frank resigns from her employ and refunds the dash she had given him to bury his late father to pursue a career in TV producing and presenting as a self-styled Mental-Realignment Therapist. Now she feels she has lost on three fronts: losing her best teacher on whom the students dot, his daughter has become a sorry case because she has lost the only true love she has ever had, and she have the romance that had just started between her and the very young and passionate lover that Frank is. She resolves to destroy him. When the street urchins she paid to kill him fail to do their work because Frank is a tough street boy, she engages the services of an unscrupulous senior police officer to frame him and kill him, but Frank is lucky enough to avoid extra judicial killing. The officer locks him up in the police cell for the time being.

While in police custody, his pre-recorded programme FRANK TALK debuts on national TV and AMINAT, 23 taken in by his programme, pleads with her mum to release Frank, but she will not accept any plea promising to make him face the consequences of making her daughter a nervous wreck. Aminat will have to take the matter to her father at the National Assembly in faraway Abuja. When the Senator (Akintola Akin-Lewis) shows up, Madam promptly asks the urchins to lay off, but their leader BONDLO, 28 ( Ukaogo Ugochukwu Xto) will not listen. He is nursing a fractured skull and a broken arm following a brush he and his team had with Frank days back (before the police officer took over). Bondlo insists he must have his revenge.

The Senator takes the matter of Frank’s unlawful incarceration for three days to the Area Command of the police. When the Area Commander listen to Frank recount his ordeal, it dawns on everyone present (including Fatima, who is now supporting her sister Aminat’s cause on Frank) that Frank is still deeply in love with Fatima. He swears to love her till death.  This leads to Fred’s release, but the Area Commander seeing how the Senator’s wife has abused the police by engaging one of their rotten eggs to frame up a citizen of the federal republic, decides that Madam must be prosecuted in order to fully deal with the senior police officer who allows himself to be used. He wants Frank to put down his statement so as to use him as a principal witness in the case. Frank however is not fooled. He knows that with the Senator involved, the case will not go anywhere, not when his wife is the one being tried, he also has no love for the police, which is seeking a face-saving prosecution. Refuses and dares the Commander to subpoena him. Outside on his way out of the police complex, no one has any idea that Bondlo is lurking in the dark next to the police station and when next Frank will see Bondlo it is the eye of the gun that takes his life he sees spitting fire. The police officer who rises to stop Bondlo’s attack gets in too late, he calls for assistance calling out that Frank has been shot.

The sound of gunshots and the voice of the officer outside announcing Frank’s shooting, force Fatima to rise from her wheel chair and land on her face, but the second shot forces her off the ground and she runs outside. Everyone is shocked at the sheer impossibility. But, Fatima will meet the dead, bleeding body Frank.

Director: Osezuah Elimhe

Writer: Osezuah Elimhe

Cast:  Akintola Akin-Lewis, Gabriel Afolayan, Jackie Idimogu, Chinwe O. Audiana Craig

First-Cause

First-Cause

First-Cause