Girlz Hostel hits the airwave

Cast

A new TV drama, Girlz Hostel will hit the airwave in September. Created by Yinka Smart Babalola but written and co-produced by Lara Tubosun, Girlz Hostel, which is a reflection of the need to protect the girl-child, is a new television drama which reveals the daily experiences of students who live off campuses.

According to is producer, it features the lives of six female students in their ‘off campus’ hostel in a typical Nigerian university, and has now been recorded into 13 hilarious episodes, but mmore episodes would soon be produced.

It mirrors how Baba RSK (Hafiz Oyetoro) and six female students; Mama T (Ifechukwu Achife), Wura (Abiola Kasali), Sidikat (Goodness Emmanual), Ibinabo (Cynthia Abagwe), Tokunbo (Mary Ann Amakor) and Mercy ( Mary Ann Eziekwe) operate in the hostel.

Mama T, who tends to lord it over the remaining girls but whose ego is deflated when the other girls hatch plans by her sugar daddy, Uncle B (Yinka Smart Babalola) to seduce Wura with money. First, the randy Uncle B offers Wura the sum of fifty thousand naira in exchange for sex but a pretentious Wura discloses this to other girls and they all lay ambush for the old man. The latter visits Wura on a Friday, believing the other girls had left for home, only for them to pounce on him and ridicule him for his unfaithfulness.

In another episode, the same Uncle B tries to seduce the only Moslem in the hostel, Sidikat, but this backfires as Sidikat slaps him thus humiliating him before Mama T and other girls.

In another scene, the ploy by Wura and other girls to prevent Mama T from renting a room in the hostel was frustrated; so Wura deceives Baba RSK that her friend would take the room on condition that Baba RSK befriends her as compensation for late payment. But the plan fails as the girl discovers the plan and ultimately loses the room to Mama T.

Commenting on why he created Girlz Hostel, Babalola said he was inspired by the rising societal challenges that are facing female students living and studying outside their campuses in Nigeria.

The comedy, according to him aims to entertain and educate all classes of viewers. As a thorough bred theatre artiste, parent and theatre teacher, Babalola said there are problems in the tertiary educations which subject students to harsh and precarious conditions, and that parents ought to know and monitor the lives of their children and wards especially from the stages of puberty until they attain adulthood. Babalola also revealed that he tapped into the talents of some of the students on the University of Ibadan campus to realise his vision through the drama.