To Kill A Monkey — Kemi Adetiba’s Netflix crime thriller — is in production on a second season, anticipated to arrive around July 2026. The first season, released in July 2025, followed Efemini (William Benson), a desperate programmer pulled into the lucrative and dangerous world of Lagos cybercrime by an old friend turned kingpin (Bucci Franklin), through a moral descent in which every choice led to a greater compromise. It became one of the most discussed Nigerian titles on Netflix and a major winner at the 2026 AMVCA, where Bucci Franklin took Best Supporting Actor for his role.
Adetiba is one of the most significant filmmakers in contemporary Nollywood. Her King of Boys franchise redefined the scale and ambition of Nigerian political crime drama, and her 2023 Netflix deal — which alongside To Kill A Monkey includes Welcome To The Fourth and a third King of Boys instalment — established her as one of the platform’s most important African creative partners. A second season of To Kill A Monkey is the continuation of that partnership and of the cybercrime story the first season left poised for development.
The Cybercrime Subject and Why It Resonates
To Kill A Monkey works because its subject is specific to its moment. Cybercrime — the “Yahoo” economy, the specific Nigerian cultural and economic phenomenon of internet fraud and the young men drawn into it — is one of the most charged subjects in contemporary Nigerian life. It sits at the intersection of economic desperation, generational tension, moral compromise, and the specific way global digital infrastructure has created new criminal economies in places the formal economy has failed. Adetiba’s series treats that subject not as a moral lesson but as a moral minefield, following a character whose descent is comprehensible even as it is condemnable.
That specificity is what makes the show travel. The first season streamed across Netflix’s English-language territories — the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India, Singapore — reaching audiences who encountered the specific texture of Lagos cybercrime as genuinely new screen territory. The second season inherits that international audience and the AMVCA validation that confirmed the first season’s quality to the domestic industry.
What It Carries for Netflix
As RollCallAfrica has reported, Netflix’s African commissioning has contracted, and the titles it does commission carry disproportionate weight. To Kill A Monkey Season 2, alongside Aníkúlápó Season 2, is one of the tentpole African titles the platform is betting on in 2026. Both are returning seasons of established successes rather than new commissions — which tells you something about Netflix’s current risk posture in Africa. The platform is doubling down on what has already worked rather than expanding into the new and untested.
That conservatism puts pressure on the returning seasons to perform. If To Kill A Monkey Season 2 sustains the first season’s engagement, it strengthens the case for Adetiba’s continued partnership and for ambitious Nigerian crime drama on the platform. RollCallAfrica will track its performance and review the season on release.
— Adaeze Okoye. RollCallAfrica, Lagos. 6 June 2026. Sources: Netflix official communications, Wikipedia (To Kill a Monkey production data), AMVCA 2026 official results (Africa Magic).
