The documentary on MKO Abiola premieres in Lagos tonight and opens in cinemas tomorrow.

Ose Oyamendan was working on a film set in Israel when his phone rang. He told Arise News he knew he had to answer, because his phone never rings on set. It was his son, then nine, who was doing a school assignment on Nigerian leaders and couldn’t find anything on one. Oyamendan recalls his son asking, “So where are you really?”

Oyamendan said he drove back to his apartment in Ashkelon that day and knew he had to finish the project. That project was MKO, a documentary on Moshood Abiola, the annulled 12 June 1993 election and the struggle that followed. It took 13 years and cost more than $1 million, he says.

The work was slow. Oyamendan says people he approached refused to talk at first. At one point, he says, he thought the project had died. A co-producer in Canada helped carry it forward.

The film features Wole Soyinka, Ibrahim Babangida, Abdulsalami Abubakar, Olusegun Obasanjo and Babagana Kingibe, according to reports of the premiere. It had its world premiere at the Sheffield Doc Fest on 12 June. Tonight it has its national premiere in Lagos, with the President named as chief host. Reports give the venue as the National Theatre.

Oyamendan says it opens in cinemas across Nigeria tomorrow, 2 October.