The Herd: Netflix’s Successful Crime Thriller About Nigeria’s Kidnapping Crisis

Daniel Etim Effiong has been waiting to tell a story like this. While he is primarily known for his extensive work as an actor, Effiong has always found himself itching to extend his interest in filmmaking and to tell a story with resonance and heart. A story like his debut feature, The Herd. Directed by Effiong, The Herd is a gripping thriller that follows the kidnapping of a group of people by herdsmen. The gripping narrative intelligently engages with Nigeria’s festering insecurity problem. The Herd first made its cinema release on October 17 to a modest reception, but it wasn’t until its latest release on Netflix last week that the film found a wider audience and became a fitting summary of Nigeria’s current socio-political climate.

“The biggest payoff for me yet has just been the fact that it's become topical and everyone is talking about it,” Effiong tells OkayAfrica. “Just reading the comments, people's opinions and how people make conjectures and draw parallels between the film and what's happening in society is so fulfilling.” For Effiong, “this is why I wanted to tell stories. To make people think, talk, engage, sit down and consider things in our society.”

That’s exactly what this film has been doing. Nigeria is currently facing one of its worst periods of economic strife, triggering and worsening insecurity levels. Hundreds of people across the country, including school children and churchgoers, were kidnapped at gunpoint within the space of two weeks. The wider release of The Herd arrived in the middle of this, creating an uncanny but much-needed illustration of the country’s terrorism issue. 

Shot beautifully, deeply researched and powered by a cleverly interwoven story, The Herd uses the interiority of its characters, the kidnapped characters and their families frantically searching for them, to humanise the often abstract reporting of Nigeria’s insecurity problems. The story was written by Lani Aisida and places national tragedy side by side with personal ones, offering viewers the ways in which a difficult life can be made worse by a fractured system. 

From the very beginning, viewers are thrown into chaos, as they will throughout the film; from a boisterous wedding a couple elopes from to the violence they stumble into in the process of that.

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“I loved how honest the script was. It didn’t exaggerate anything, and it felt real,” Genoveva Umeh, who plays Derin, one of the kidnap victims that is widowed and held captive on her wedding day. “What stood out to me was how much heart it had. Even in the darkest moments, it focused on family, love, and survival.”

Alongside Umeh, the film also stars Effiong alongside a litany of stars, including Linda Ejiofor, Mercy Aigbe, Tina Mba, and others. While the story is anchored by the race to rescue the kidnapped, the film still finds time to explore the interiority of the characters, exposing a loop of contradictions inherent in humans. A man is forced to decimate his dead best friend while he himself is in captivity. A grieving woman blames her late husband’s friend for his death and not his actual killers. Another man admits that he has been kidnapped before. Effiong says it was important to highlight these contradictions as a way of further humanising these characters.

“Often we think we can control life and put things in place, but the more you try, the more it gets out of balance. So it's that realization that there are forces beyond our control and life can just happen to you, Nigeria can just happen to you, and you will be totally powerless,” he says.

• Effiong's Directorial Vision

Effiong is comfortable leaping from the edge. “I've been pretty used to throwing myself off the cliff into the wind,” the 37-year-old admits. Against his family's wishes, he moved from engineering into entertainment. There was a brief stint as a content producer and then film school in South Africa. Led by a thirst for more, Effiong left a padded life in South Africa to try his hand at Nollywood as an actor. “I built a career, and then I decided to throw myself into film production. I'd formed this habit of being dissatisfied and wanting more,” he admits.

As a director, Effiong is sharp but not style-obsessed. He prioritises the quality of the story while allowing the camera to take on an immersive effect, not merely observational. The film is shot like a roving eye, but also mirrors the confusion and apprehension of the characters in its motions; circling when the characters are looking for something and tense when they are near a revelation. Effiong says the camera work plays into the theme of contradictions.

“In that safety, I also wanted to create confinement. Outside of captivity, it was safe, it was predictable, but it was also rigid and confined. On the flip side of that view. It was shaky. It was lots of movement, lots of handheld shots, lots of in-your-face shots. Yes, it was disorienting, but it also felt free to move and explore,” he explains.

“Working with Daniel was great. He creates a calm, safe space and lets actors explore. This was extremely difficult for him because he had to direct and act,” Umeh says. “We talked a lot about each scene and what it meant emotionally. He encouraged me to be brave with some scenes, and he gave us a treat after a big scene. He trusts his actors, and that made the work easier and more honest.”

“His attention to detail is impeccable. I really learned a lot from him as an actor who also wants to venture into the production side of things,” Emeka Nwagbaraocha, who also stars in the film, says. “He was able to carry everyone along and also be empathetic to the actors as well because he’s also in our shoes. I really enjoyed working with him.”

A story for the times

It’s rare for a story like this to come along at a time when the country is most in need of answers. Although The Herd is not the first Nigerian film to address Nigeria’s insecurity problem, the timing of its Netflix release is nevertheless serendipitous. For many, The Herd provides an urgent context to a bewildering situation, although others hold the opinion that the story misrepresents certain parts and tribes in Nigeria. Still, the general consensus is that this is a timely work. Nwagbaraocha says the film’s reception addresses our collective desensitisation. “I hope this film creates an urgency in the minds of not only our government but our people who see that these things are happening and something has to be done about it.”

“The film gives people a way to talk about what they feel. Many people are scared or hurting but don’t know how to express it. Seeing their reality on screen helps them feel understood and less alone,” Umeh shares.

On Effiong’s part, this film is an affirmation of his commitment to telling ambitious stories. Despite the plethora of issues that came with making the film, from funding to production pushbacks and skepticism about his ability to pull off such a thematically heavy work, Effiong says he has grown as an artist. This success feels like a bolster.

“For me, it has always been telling stories that mattered, telling stories that strike a chord and maybe hit a nerve in society.”