The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives

Lola Shoneyin’s 2010 novel The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives has been waiting sixteen years for a screen adaptation that could do justice to its complexity, wit, and moral precision. EbonyLife, working with director Daniel Oriahi and screenwriter Adze Ugah, has made not just a great adaptation but one of the finest Nigerian films ever put to screen.

The story — about the four wives of a boastful Ibadan patriarch, and the secrets that begin to unravel when his fourth wife fails to conceive — is both intimate domestic drama and devastating social critique. Oriahi refuses to simplify its moral geometry. Baba Segi (Odunlade Adekola in a career-redefining performance) is monstrous and pitiable in the same frame. His wives — each played with extraordinary precision — are survivors, co-conspirators, and, occasionally, each other’s only allies.

Omowunmi Dada as Bolanle, the educated new wife whose arrival disrupts the compound’s careful order, is luminous and quietly furious. Shaffy Bello as the senior wife Iya Segi dominates every scene she inhabits with the authority of someone who has paid for her position in ways the film slowly, carefully reveals.

The film’s Ibadan setting is rendered with a specificity and warmth that feels like genuine homecoming. This is the year’s most complete Nigerian film — the one 2026 will be remembered for.

Verdict: A masterpiece. EbonyLife and Oriahi deliver the literary adaptation Nigerian cinema has been waiting for.