Rebuilding moral values through Comedy in Glo Professor Johnbull

Professor Johnbull, the rave TV drama series sponsored by telecommunications giant, Globacom, has caught on with television viewers across the nation by taking on the toga of a morality gauge for people of different beliefs and inclinations.

The situation comedy which derives its uniqueness from being a social satire has progressed across stand-alone plots which address social issues revolving around key characters in the series. The drama centres round contemporary issues of life and communal living. It is garnished with satire to attract the interest of all and sundry, while its language is mostly fluid and simple, apart from that of the Prof who exhibited the traits of an ideal erudite scholar.

The main attraction for viewers apart from the array of star artistes is the professor whose character employs bombastic idioms to describe the various characters in words ranging from unswerving, philanderer, gregarious, acquiescent, prevaricator, sedulous, gullible, adjudicator and confusionist, while he describes himself simply as erudite. While upbraiding his house help, Caro, played by Mercy Johnson-Okojie for turning herself into the ‘’Witch of Endor’’, Professor Johnbull opines that her rather queer way of differentiating between two alphabets was an ‘exhibition of primitively atavistic tendencies’ and ‘unabashed educational jingoism’. Consequent on this, he accuses his daughter, Elizabeth (Queen Nwokoye) of failure to subject the housemaid to ‘anthropological larynphalothrophy’ before she was employed. This failure on Elizabeth’s part, according to the egghead, is the reason why the house help displays ‘filial insubordination’.

The series specifically harps on issues affecting Nigerians, especially the youth in Nigeria of today in particular and the world in general. The series have enjoyed rave reviews and comments on the different social platforms especially from youths who keep it a date every Tuesday on NTA International, NTA Network and StarTimes where highly educational and didactic twists are injected into hilarious social issues.

For instance, when the professor encounters the fake D’Banj at Olaniyi (Yomi Fash-Lanso’s) restaurant in Episode One of Season One, titled ‘’Claimant’’, he views his sobriquet, Kokomaster as a ‘taxonomical anomaly’ and then does a scientific genealogical chart of cocoa which botanical name is theobroma cacao.  But beyond the bombastic tirade, the episode exposes an impostor who parades as the real D’Banj.

A Good Flavour, featured modern high life music star, Chinedu Okoli popularly known as Flavour who visited the professor’s homestead and in the process taught his contemporaries the virtues of humility and self-confidence devoid of needless ego trips and disrespect for others.

In African Time, Odunlade Adekola makes a cameo appearance during which the evil of time wasting known in local parlance was frowned upon. The episode condemns the practice which has robbed humanity of profitable resources just as Selfie Stick featured Yvonne Nelson who takes the art of using selfie sticks for taking photographs  to an exaggerated proportion and got hurt in the process.

In Half bread and Puff-Puff, Sani Danja, a Glo ambassador is featured as a playboy who is in the habit of making fake marriage proposals to unsuspecting young ladies while in Foreign Petrol, the thriving incidence of black market sale of fuel and the attendant ills of profiteering from the nation’s economic challenges by a few come to the fore with the erudite professor condemning the trend in his usual unsparing manner.

In all, the sitcom targets a predominantly youthful audience.  In order to give credence to this, half of the major cast is drawn from the youth populace in Nollywood. More intriguing is the fact that these Nollywood faces easily connect with the various strata of the target group.

These include Mercy Johnson Okojie, Queen Nwokoye, Junior Pope Odonwodo, Yomi Fash-Lanso, Stephen Odimgbe, Bidemi Kosoko and Sayeed Mohammed a.k.a. funky Mallam while Bovi Ugboma, OC Ukeje, Hadiza Bleel (DiJa) and Yvonne Nelson, Jude Abaga (MI), Helen Paul have made guest appearances on the series at different episodes.  There are also other characters that are not permanent in the sitcom but add a lot of humor to the series which just concluded two seasons of  13-episodes each.  It is expected that the lessons treated in the episodes would have helped to strengthen the moral values that are currently being eroded in homes.