“inspiring”   Sunday Times
“heartening, sometimes shocking”   Daily Mail
“The amazing story of Ade Adepitan, who went back to Nigeria to find out why he got polio there”   Bill Gates on Twitter

“Making this film has changed my life. It was always very personal territory for me. When the polio virus attacked me as a baby in Nigeria, it took away any chance of me being able to walk.”

Ade Adeptan, paralympic medallist and presenter of Channel 4’s BAFTA winning Paralympics coverage, was inspired to return to the land of his birth to find out why it remain one of three places on earth that children are still contracting Polio.

What he found challenged, shocked, frightened and inspired him by turn – as he travelled from the commercial centre of Lagos in the south to the dangerous violent north, where health workers risk their lives in an attempt to complete one of most ambitious health campaigns in history, which teeters on the brink of success and failure.

Along the way, Ade discovers the toxic mix of religion, superstition and suspicion of the outsider, the so called “White Witch”, that has made the task of eradication so difficult.

But this is not simply some local battle. Polio is a virulent virus. Unless the combined forces of state and local leaders can be brought together for the final push, other countries that are now free can easily be reinfected and decades of work could be undone.

CHANNEL 4 (2013)

Camera/ Producer/ Director : Michael Simkin
Executive Producer : Angus Macqueen
Editor : Mick Johnson