The introduction to Three Roads To Tomorrow outlines the two main themes of the film. ‘Modern transport and oil power have changed the lives of all Nigeria and that is part of our theme’, the commentator explains. ‘The rest of our theme is where these journeys lead.’ These themes are inherently linked, as the film aligns the development of transport – brought about by BP, as the lorry with the company logo emblazoned on it indicates – with the social advancements within Nigeria. ‘You can go places in Nigeria nowadays. Both in the figurative sense, because of advanced education and in the literal sense’, the commentator explains. In following the journeys – by a variety of methods – the film illustrates how ‘modern transport enables them [students] to get there [Ibadan University] although their homes are far apart’. Credit here is also given to the government as ‘the government has given Ibadan University as a goal’.

By following three individuals from different backgrounds – a narrative device Humphrey Swingler also used in Distant Neighbours (1956), another Greenpark production for BP – the film illustrates the social impact of improved transport in uniting different cultures within a national identity. These disparate cultures embrace a ‘shared life’ at the University, and at a time when Nigeria was increasingly decentralised – the Western and Eastern regions achieved self-government in 1957 and the Northern region would follow in 1959 – the film imagines a modern united country. It does so by talking vaguely of a ‘nation of tomorrow’, rather than directly referring to independence. This modern, future nation is defined by education and transport, but also by the modern dance club in which they meet. The dance club, to which the camera returns after each journey, signifies a space of heterosociality, and of modern urban nightlife.

In the final sequence, the friends visit Northern Nigeria, which is described as this ‘country that nevertheless is part of their country’. The film attempts to show the confluence of regional and national identities, which are defined primarily in terms of the traditional and the modern. The three friends celebrate ‘the traditional festival of Salah’ – acknowledging the importance of existing customs – yet the commentary still recognises that these traditions are giving way to a new future (‘the past salutes the future’). Although the film imagines a modern Nigeria, run by educated (and affluent and privileged) Nigerian students, there is little room for Nigerian voices within this British production, aside from in the music. The British commentator speaks for, and at, the Nigerian students and explicitly outlines the film’s message. Monthly Film Bulletin criticised the commentary for its ‘fulsomely rhetorical tone’, yet evidently the commentator was speaking directly to audiences here about Nigeria’s future, as not only was the film exhibited as part of BP’s internationalist social programme, but it was also part of the wider context of debates regarding the future of Britain’s African colonies.

Tom Rice (April 2009)