Eniola Salami, the businesswoman who runs Lagos crime: why King of Boys became Nollywood’s favourite gangster story

The most feared gangster in modern Nollywood is a middle-aged Lagos businesswoman who wears aso-oke and gele to her own crimes.

Her name is Eniola Salami, and she is the centre of King of Boys, the 2018 film written and directed by Kemi Adetiba. Played by the veteran actress Sola Sobowale, Salami is a philanthropist in public and a crime lord in private, and the film follows what happens when her ambition turns to politics.

The story

Salami runs legitimate businesses and gives to charity, but her power comes from the underworld: thugs, deals with politicians and control of the streets. When she moves to secure a political appointment, her allies turn, rivals rise and the violence she has kept hidden comes into the open. The film weaves together crime, family and politics in a way that audiences recognised from Nigerian life.

Sola Sobowale

Sobowale had been a star of Yoruba-language films and television for decades, best known to many viewers from the long-running sitcom Super Story and comedy roles. King of Boys gave her a dramatic lead part that showed a different range. Her performance, cold and commanding one moment and emotional the next, was widely praised and won her awards.

Kemi Adetiba

Adetiba began as a music video director and television presenter before moving into film. Her first feature, The Wedding Party (2016), was a big box office success. King of Boys showed a darker, more ambitious side of her work, with a long running time and a large cast, and it performed strongly in Nigerian cinemas.

The Return of the King

The film’s success led to King of Boys: The Return of the King, a seven-part series released on Netflix in August 2021. It picked up Eniola Salami’s story after the events of the film, with her returning from exile to run for governor of Lagos. It was one of Netflix’s first major original Nigerian series and was watched widely across Africa and the diaspora.

Why it worked

King of Boys worked because it took Nigerian politics and crime seriously while giving audiences the pleasures of a gangster epic. Its lead was a woman in her fifties, a rare choice for a crime drama anywhere. And its world felt real: political godfathers, area boys, police, pastors and businessmen all tangled together.

Lines and scenes from the film became memes, and “King of Boys” became shorthand in Nigerian conversation for anyone, man or woman, who holds hidden power.

What it opened

The film and series helped show Netflix and other platforms that Nigerian crime and political drama could travel. More Nollywood thrillers and series followed on streaming services.

Eniola Salami ends the first film in a very different place from where she began. Nigerian audiences spent three years waiting to see what she would do next.