Vehicle Decorations: 1961 Photograph from the Harrison Forman Collection

I know, I know, I have once again neglected the blog. What can I say? Well, I can apologise: So, yes, I am sorry. – I have stumbled across a few interesting things in the meantime but I haven't get got around to writing about them. Here, is a first attempt to do just that, sharing a photograph with you that I found thanks to the industrious Kehinde Thompson at the Nigeria Nostalgia Project (Facebook, TumblR, Twitter) - which is a really great group to follow if you're interested in anything regarding Nigerian history!

The photograph is part of at the University of Wisconsin's Digital Photo Archive, in particular the Harrison Forman Collection. There's a number of beautiful and interesting photographs in the collection that are accessible from the comfort of your local library or home office. - Including this wonderful photograph, depicting a bright blue mammy wagon with an inscription in white on its left side, 'Asaba Do Exelsior.' The photograph was taken in 1961, documenting early developments of vehicle decoration.

(Nigeria, Street Scene in Igbo Village, 1961, AGSL Digital Photo Archive - Africa, acc. 18/12/2017)

The photograph – and, in fact, others in this particular collection – has been subject to heated debate among members of the Facebook group (see here for the original photograph and here for a second photograph taken at the same location) . It's titled 'Nigeria, Street Scene in Igbo Village' but many commentators seem rather convinced – on the basis of the fashion of passers-by that the scene was actually recorded in southwestern Nigeria, prompting a debate. Suggestions included Benin and Ilorin in the Southwest but also Asaba, Onitsha and Sapele in the Southeast. I wouldn't want to weigh into this debate – I do not know these regions well nor the fashions of the time and places suggested. But, do note that the vehicle's inscription refers to Asaba, a south-eastern town in today's Delta State.

I am, anyway, much more interested in some of the recollections of life and transport at the time that the photograph prompted. Here's a particularly beautiful comment by Olabunmu Sadiq:

'This looks like the southwest version called "boolekaja" translated "come down and fight". The conductors were always rude and riotous and would always crave for a fight, inviting any stubborn passenger to come down and fight.

The seats were made of long benches, double sitter in the middle where passengers back each other, while single seaters were directly behind the driver, and the other behind the front passenger seat.

The conductor or drive wold most often want to park the passengers like sardines which the passengers most often want[ed] to resist. The driver would should "e sun" meaning "compact yourself" and at the second prompting without compliance, the driver would step sharply on the break and the momentum would shift the passengers forward involuntarily.

Very interesting era in our transportation history.'

(17/12/2017, Re: 'Street Scene in Igbo Village 1961, Harrison Forman Collection, American Geographical Society Library © UWM Libraries' [Facebook Comment]. Retrieved: Nigerian Nostalgia Project, acc. 18/12/2017).

'[H]undred miles an hour ... only speed a self-respecting Nigerian considers worthy of him' - Theodore Dalrymple on his Travels in West Africa

I can't focus today. So, I have abandoned the more academic literature I was to read today and, instead, settled down with a travelogue. This one was written by Anthony Daniels under his alias Theodore Dalrymple (no relation of that other travel writer, William Dalrymple, as far as I can gather), a doctor, psychiatrist and journalist. After two years of working in Tanzania, Dalrymple decided to cross Africa from Zanzibar to Mali by public transport, by bus, lorry, train, boat and canoe. His account lacks the historical and analytical depths of William Dalrymple's From the Holy Mountain, another travelogue I have recently read and enjoyed. Nevertheless, the book contains some gems – and, indeed, some rather lovely accounts of busses and lorries.

Wanlov: Tribute to Ghanaian Trotros

It's finally summer here in Germany and I am enjoying the sun in my parents' backyard a train ride outside Berlin. So, let's have some music! And its even topical, well, kind off.

Do you, dear reader, know of any musical tributes to Nigerian motivator bikes, tricycles, cars and lorries transporting passengers or goods? Or their drivers for that matter? - Other than Bobby Benson's Taxi Driver that is. Even I already knew this one.

Ken Saro-Wiwa's (1985) Sozaboy: 'I can buy my own lorry and then I will be big man like any lawyer or doctor'

I am currently reading/re-reading some classics of Nigerian literature in the search for references to lorries, lorry art and possibly cowboys. – I have to confess that I enjoy plenty of them better the second time around now that I am reading at my own pace rather than to the schedule of a university course. The latest I have read was Ken Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy (and, for once, I actually do like the German translation I accidentally ordered). The book's strangely topical with the anniversary of Biafra last week, the pro-Biafra rallies in recent months and the proclamations of certain self-proclaimed (and promptly and widely disowned) northern youth leaders. For my own purpose, however, the fact that the novel's protagonist, the eponymous Sozaboy, starts out as an apprentice driver is of greater interest at the moment. This was one of the details that didn't mean much to me back at university but that get me excited now.

'Of all of my memories of ... Nigeria the most lasting is that of the endless roads' (Robert Collis 1970)

I stumbled across this book with a wonderful chapter on roads and driving in Nigeria, Robert Collis' (1970) Nigeria in Conflict.[1] Collis worked as Head of the Paediatric Department at the Medical School in Ibadan and Professor of Paediatrics in Lagos. In many ways it is just another account of Nigeria by an expatriate working there in the late 1950s. However, it is well written. – There is for example a rather incriminating account of a conversation he had with an English businessman operating in Nigeria in the chapter on corruption:

'One simply can't get anywhere … without bribing one's way right down the line. These Nigerians are sharks!'

'Isn't it worse for you who imagine yourself a Christian gentleman … to be giving bribes than it is for these dishonest chaps to accept them?' I asked.

'Look,' he said angrily, ' if I didn't the Americans would.'

(Collis 1970: 184)

Inside Africa (BBC) on Matatus in Nairobi, Kenya

Here's an Inside Africa (BBC) clip that highlights the visual culture of matatus in Nairobi, Kenya, and particular the work of Matwana Matatu Culture to highlight and document it. I've only recently stumbled upon their blog and youtube site but, yeah, I wish I'd see the same enthusiasm directed towards vehicle decoration in Nigeria. – Note that the documentary speaks of the imagery on matatus as 'window into the culure,' 'art galleries' or 'museums on wheels' and reflections of Nairobi's urban youth cultures. Obviously, I concur.

(clip after the break) 

The car in your hand is an aeroplane' - Niyi Osundare's (1986) Song of the Nigerian Driver

The other day I found another poem that fits the subject of my current project, i.e. lorry decorations. To pay respect where it is due, I acknowledge my debt to Christiane Fioupou (1994) who mentioned this poem in her study of representations of the road in Wole Soyinka's works. I may have found it eventually – I am currently still flicking through issues of the weekly West Africa in which it has been published. However, it would have taken me a long time.

Lorry Art Snippets: Biblical Scene 2007

Haven't posted any for a while, so here's another lovely photograph of the tailgate of a painted lorry. I found this one on a blog, Stardust's Shadow. The photo was taken on travels through West Africa in 2007, apparently on the road between Benin City and Ile-Ife. 

Martin Bennett (1999): Mammy-Wagons, Kaduna-Lagos Road

The other day I stumbled across this beautiful little poem by Martin Bennet, a British poet and translator who is, if I am not mistaken, now based in Rome, Italy (link leads to another of his poems but with a short bio). This poem comes from a collection that is informed by his time in Nigeria and was published in 1999 by Wasafiri. 

D.Ch.E. Ugwuegbu (1977): The Stop Sign is for the Other Guy

The other day I stumbled across a study of Nigerian drivers that had been published by a member of the Psychology Department of the University of Ibadan, Denis Chimaeze E. Ugwuegbu. It was published in the Journal of Applied Psychology (Vol. 62, Issue 5, 574-77) in 1977 (The side I linked to links through to the journey but the article is behind a paywall).Today I finally got my hands on the hard copy.

I generally don't have much patience for psychological studies – I don't quite know how to properly read the statistical analyses that they present – but I liked the title of this one: 'The Stop Sign is for the Other Guy.' I know, I know. This makes me sound incredibly superficial. In this case, however, the headline kept its promise and I found some well put observations that will probably make it into the working paper on cowboys on Nigerian roads that I must have mentioned before.

Lorry Art Snippets: No Food for Lazy Man

I stumbled across another beautiful (and old-ish) photograph of a painted lorry in Nigeria that I want to share with you here. This is from Dynamic Africa's tumblr feed.

Lorry Art Snippets: Photos from Lagos

I am not enough of a regular on Twitter not to miss the one or the other tweet that might be interesting and have some bearing on the theme of this blog. So, here's one that didn't escape me – although I've seen it somewhat late. So, here's two more images of lorry decoration from Lagos to add to the collection!

Ikorodu Road - A Poem

Alright, so here is one of these snippets that I stumbled across in the course of flicking through, in this case, Nigeria Magazine, in the search of articles and images that may be relevant to the research project I'm currently working on. It is by Vera Norman and was published in Nigeria Magazine. September 1964. No. 81. 236. I quite like it. 

P.S. Ikorodu Road, if you don't happen to be familiar with the transport networks of southern Nigeria, is a major express way connecting Lagos mainland to Ikorodu. It's important enough to have a Wikipedia page of its own. 

Ikorodu Road

Glaring white eyes their light

Reproduced and glancing off our own

As they race towards us

Leaping a slight rise or bending corner.

Ahead a mirage as light beats down on vapour

Like a fantastic sunburst prismatic upon sea.

The great expanse of nubian [sic] sky

Thrown down upon us by the heavy foliage

Of towering trees and plumage of the palms

Groping upwards with long arms.

The dark night illumined intermittently

By tropic flashes of white light

Following a season's storm.

But far more fearful than black skies

And the fast moving, glaring eyes

Now floating up before us a weird scene.

Ghost upon ghost, rising, weaving,

Beckoning, breaking into a vat host,

Armies of ectoplasm, where sudden rain

Recently fell on dry road.

Where is this fearful place,

Enchanted wood or childish fantasy?

But no, it is reality

As any drive will show at intervals,

The metal scars of numerous crashed cars

Victims of both day and night

Upended or on banks. 

To be honest, what fascinates me here, is Norman's description of the experience of travelling by road – some of which I can relate to a trip late last week here in Germany. It was dark and it was raining. We were travelling on one of the local highways from a family birthday back home to the small town where I am currently staying. This feels familiar:

Glaring white eyes their light

Reproduced and glancing off our own

As they race towards us

Leaping a slight rise or bending corner.

I admit that I am a bit traumatised by a recent accident. So, driving in the dark is a bit scary now. Even on German highways where there is a division between my lane and the one in which the 'glaring white eyes' of the cars that 'race towards us.' The later parts of the poem, however, are more reminiscent of experiences I have had travelling on Nigerian roads:

Now floating up before us a weird scene.

Ghost upon ghost, rising, weaving,

Beckoning, breaking into a vat host,

Armies of ectoplasm, where sudden rain

Recently fell on dry road.

…

As any drive will show at intervals,

The metal scars of numerous crashed cars

Victims of both day and night

Upended or on banks. 

It reflects on the dangers of long-distance travel on Nigerian roads. I remember seeing the wrecks of burnt out cars along on the road side when I travelled in shared 'bush' taxies. I travelled quite a bit but nothing comparable to the time that commercial drivers will spend on the road. So, I wonder, to which extent this is also a good illustration of the dangers that the drivers of those painted lorries experience – and whether there is a way in which I can work this poem into the project I am currently working on. I want it to be less academically dry, after all, more fun. 

Oh well, let's see.