Ghetto Mother

Tamar drives a rickety tricycle through a crowded Nigerian compound to pay private school fees for her daughter Vicky. Vicky walks to and from school alone, a routine that draws the attention of her estranged father Osas, a drug-addled drifter who manipulates her into stealing for him. At school a wealthy classmate named Debby bullies Vicky relentlessly. Tamar, hardened by survival, teaches Vicky to fight back physically, and the lesson culminates in a bloody fight that earns Vicky a week-long suspension. The principal and Debby's mother confront Tamar and humiliate her for her poverty and uncouth manner, and the principal threatens expulsion unless the overdue fees are paid immediately. The tricycle breaks down and Tamar's desperation peaks. Vicky feels abandoned and influenced by Osas's twisted logic, so she steals a biscuit from a shop. Tamar discovers the theft and spirals into a rage, threatening to abandon her own child, but her friend Vera intervenes and forces Tamar to confront her trauma and reconcile with Vicky. In a moment of utter hopelessness Tamar agrees to sleep with a man for three hundred thousand naira to cover the fees, but she cannot go through with it at the hotel. The man, Dr. David, recognizes her dignity and gives her the money anyway, asking for nothing in return. He later reveals he is the principal's son and confronts his mother about her lack of empathy, disclosing his own childhood trauma. Moved, the principal reinstates Vicky. Dr. David also secures Tamar a stable, well-paying caretaker job, allowing her to sell the tricycle and begin living with newfound dignity. Just as stability arrives Tamar is involved in a horrific tricycle accident while finishing her last days on the keke. She is rushed to the hospital with critical kidney damage, unconscious and fighting for her life. Vicky stays with Vera and begs doctors to take her own kidney to save her mother.