Tam Fiofori: Have Art, Will Travel

That’s what happens when you don’t pay attention for a few days/week/months, you miss out on articles like this which touches upon the subject of one of your core chapters. I’m not quite sure when it was published (google tells me 21/04/2010) but check it out on Next Online. I still take the freedom to fully reproduce it here, simply because I don’t think there has yet enough been written (at least not in publications I have had access to) about this art tradition (compare that to the breadth of literature on truck arts in Afghanistan/India/Pakistan):

Tam Fiofori:

Have Art, will Travel.

As children growing up in Benin City in the 50s, we had to invent games. Benin City being a popular stopover town on the main road that linked the then capital, Lagos, and the Western Region to Onitsha and the Eastern Region (and even Cameroon), was a busy and ideal place to spot the many cars and lorries (before the advent of luxury buses) that passed through. So, we invented a quiz game based on memory, observation and descriptive powers. Essentially, the game was to spot a lorry, memorise its licence number, know its brand name, its colour and the inscriptions on the front board above the windscreen; which was where most of the idiomatic and poetic sayings were boldly written.

The lorry-spotting quiz game was intricate and complex. The variations went like this: you called out a licence number, or a brand name, or the inscription, as clues. Your opponent was then supposed to fill in the other bits of information. The first clue could be God’s Time Is The Best and, if you knew the lorry, the answers would be LE 268, Bedford, Blue. You had to match the clues to particular lorries. Or you could start with LE 268 and the correct answer would be God’s Time Is The Best, Bedford, Blue. The inscription and licence number were the major clues.

Surprisingly, any attempt to fake or cheat was invariably found out; for, at most, within two weeks, these same lorries frequently passed through Benin City in one and then the opposite direction. Also, it took most lorries about one whole hour to stop for a food-and-petrol break and then drive through and out of Benin City. This meant that children who knew and participated in the game would most likely have seen the lorry, and memorised its peculiar particulars.

Photo © Tam Fiofori (published at Next Online)

The messages

As our fascination with brand names: Bedford, Austin, Morris; colours and licence plate numbers gradually faded, we became more fascinated and intrigued by the messages the lorries bore. The messages became the main point of interest and the major clue in the lorry-spotting puzzle.

‘No Telephone to Heaven’ became my all-time favourite message. Maybe it was because telephones were relatively new and few in Benin City then. It was always a big thrill when we were allowed to talk on the telephone with our friends; some of whom were in ‘far-away’ Agbor. The idea of Heaven and talking to Almighty God himself, I agreed, was both unthinkable and impossible!

‘The Lord Is My Shepherd’, ‘Remember Six Feet’, ‘Save Journey’, ‘Slow And Steady’, ‘No Hurry In Life’, ‘Trust In God’, ‘God’s Case No Appeal’ and ‘Beware Of Friends’, were some of the memorable messages of my lorry-spotting youth. They were in the realm of social/public service and traffic education; more so when I remember that in those days on the narrow Benin City-Lagos road, there were many signs that read, ‘Beware, Elephant Crossing.’ In essence, these lorries took their messages across Nigeria and, can be rightly regarded as innovative travelling billboards with words of warning and wisdom.

Later in my early teens when my father was transferred to Yoruba land, I noticed that nearly all the lorries (Bolekajas) were Bedford and their messages were in Yoruba. Being that kids master languages fast, I was able to decipher that my favourite ‘Ewe Nla’ meant that a big leaf can never become a small leaf.

When I travelled with my Kings College multi-sport team to play against Achimota College near Accra, I was amazed to notice the Ghanaian versions of these lorries. Called Tro Tros, they were all Bedford, had their own fascinating messages with a definitely Ghanaian flavour and a different sitting arrangement; with the passengers’ backs towards the driver’s back, both looking at opposite directions.

Advent of Mercedes lorries

As from the 70s, a new dimension of lorry-body-art became noticeable on Nigerian roads. It seemed that all the Bedford, Austin, Morris lorries had disappeared, to be replaced by Mercedes Benz 911 lorries. The shape of the front of the 911 is all moulded metal and so a new form of lorry art or travelling art evolved. This is tailgate art. The messages on the back top wooden board are mostly not exciting, mostly mundane ‘Peace Movement’ or in Igbo accompanied by a huge date of a calendar year. On the tail gate are artworks; usually stylised, of lions in combat with men wielding karate kicks (the influence of Chinese films) and a speed limit. ‘No Standing’, ‘Horn Before Overtaking’ are standard instructions which are always disobeyed. Another original aspect of tailgate art is the signature and addresses of the artists that are prominently displayed.

A few months before Pope John Paul 11 was to visit Nigeria in 1998, I ventured into what was literarily a museum of stationary travelling art. Travelling through Mgbidi between Onitsha and Owerri at night, we drove past mile-long German Benz luxury buses parked on either side of the road; each with a religious motif, usually Jesus, painted on the back, and holy Catholic scenes on the sides. ‘Covered By The Blood Of Jesus’, ‘Psalm 119’ and ‘Jesus Saves’ were some of the iconic talismanic messages offered to potential passengers of these luxury buses that ply long distances across Nigeria.

Diseye Tantua employed a mix of these sayings in a collaboration that incorporated fragments of Fela’s Afrobeat lyrics for his Afro Pop Art ‘Look & Laugh’ exhibition in Lagos in 2009. In works like ‘Time Wait 4 Nobody’, ‘Original Hustler’, ‘Democrazy’, ‘Water No Get Enemy’, ‘No Event No History’, ‘Suffer Work & Chop’, ‘Life No Get Fotokopy’, ‘Chop Alone Quench Alone’ and ‘No Time 4 Nonsense’, Tantua made this marriage successful by blending colour and meaning to achieve new reason.

A carefully selected mix of classic, loaded, one-liners; expressions of witticism, wisdom, warning, wailing, barbed street humour, quasi-spiritual invocations, veiled threats, political protest, social commentary, common sense; the sublime and absurd masterfully hued and garnished in colour tones.

Foretaste of uprising

In an astonishing journey down the Forcados River in September 2005, I got a foretaste of the great unrest to come in the volatile oil-rich Niger Delta. At virtually every turn in the snaking creeks, we were accosted by armed red- head-band-wearing militants in motor-powered dug-out canoes, who wanted to know our mission. Our knowledge of the lingua franca of the Niger Delta let us through. Then out of the blue we saw ahead of us a huge goods-and-people transport boat.

Incredibly, on the back of the huge loaded boat, was a painting of a man with both his arms raised aloft in a clenched-fist salute of defiance and revolution, and above his head was written the slogan UPRISING. For those familiar with reggae music, this piece of travelling art is a tribute to Bob Marley’s album with the same title. As I raised my hitherto hidden camera to grab a sneak shot; in what could be odds of one in a million, a young man riding on the roof of the boat also raised his hands “in uprising” to collaborate Marley’s musical statement and the mood of the Niger Delta. The message was clear.

Also, not sure whether I already before linked to this article by Soyinka on the same subject.

'Generation Next' or On Art Education in Nigeria

A slightly belated reference to this very relevant article by Tam Fiofori of Next Magazine: It pretty much reflects my experience of art education in Maiduguri, Kano and Zaria. Only, that many people I spoke to explained the dire state of art education, especially in secondary schools, rather with reference to Islam. Now, looks like the problem might lie elsewhere … or at least there are further, potentially more significant obstacles to be considered.

Generation Next

By Tam Fiofori, 3 July 2009

It was Ayo Adewunmi, a lecturer at the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu; art practitioner; member of the Pan African Circle of Artists (PACA); and a member of the Life in My City organising committee; who raised the disturbing alarm when in his opening ceremony address he dropped the statistical bombshell that “Art is not taught in 80 per cent of Nigerian secondary schools because there are no Art teachers!”

This stark fact is both depressing and ironic in that there are as many as thirty Nigerian universities, polytechnics and Colleges of Education who offer degrees and Higher Diplomas in Art; there are many thousands of economically-successful practising artists across Nigeria, who in over fifty years have established Nigerian Art as a respected cultural phenomenon on the world Art scene.

Enugu itself boasts two tertiary Art schools of repute and has a thriving Art scene of creative artists, studios, galleries and imposing outdoor monumental artworks.

Why then is Art neglected as a serious subject in the curriculum of most Nigerian secondary schools; particularly government-run public schools and, what efforts and plans should be put in place to correct this anomaly and encourage more young students to fully explore their potential talents to become artists?

Professor Ola Oloidi of the University of Nsukka believes that teaching Art at secondary school will make Nigerian youths creatively engaged; and he further makes the plea that if more students are registered in our tertiary institutions to study Art; they will eventually solve some of Nigeria’s unemployment problems by being self-employed as well as employers of labour.

Getting Art teachers for secondary schools and making Art attractive to secondary school students as a future career; are two parts of the puzzle that have to be unravelled.

The history of getting Art teachers for secondary schools in Nigeria dates back seven decades. In his paper on Art Education in Nigeria; presented by Chikwue Eheli of the Ehanufu College of Education, Enugu, at the Life in My City Art Festival; he traced the trail-blazing efforts of Aina Onabolu who literarily battled the colonial administration as from the 1930s to be allowed to teach Art in secondary schools. Eventually, Onabolu was allowed to teach Art at the Methodist Boys High School and Kings College in Lagos.

In his wake came the tradition of Nigerian tertiary institution-trained Art Masters in the top public and mission schools. Ben Enwonwu taught Art at Edo College, Benin City, in the forties and went on to become Nigeria’s first Professor of Art at the then University of Ife.

Bruce Onobrakpeya taught Art from the sixties at St. Gregory’s College, Lagos; and quite a few of his students have gone on to become University-trained and prominent practising studio artists.

One would have thought that given this long tradition, there will now be a preponderance of tertiary institution-trained Art teachers in all of Nigeria’s secondary schools, public and private.

Onyia Ifeanyi who studied Art at IMT Enugu and the Bendel State University, has been an Art teacher at the Urban Girls Senior Secondary School, Enugu, for over a decade. According to him, all the senior secondary school class 1 (SS1) students study Art; while 12 SS2 and 24 SS3 students study Art.

He believes that the standard of Art in secondary schools is going down because of “a serious lack of Art teachers.” He also blames the attitude of parents, school administrators and government for this decline.

“Parents don’t encourage their children to pursue Art as a career by indirectly suggesting other professions. They don’t provide their children art materials. Government will supply science equipment to schools but not art materials and the building of kilns. The principals and other teachers collude to limit the time for art classes.

So we end up teaching our art students theory and theory with little practical engagement. We don’t have enough time for practicals and without practicals they will not love Art,” Ifeanyi observed. He is saddened by the fact that one of his most promising and talented students, a great artist-in-the-making, has chosen to read Law instead of Art in the university.

The student herself is quite coy; claiming that she can be both a lawyer and an artist. I suppose the lure for professional social status is also responsible for the decision of a young tertiary institution-trained practising artist (whose father is incidentally a famous artist and former University Art teacher) to now study Law.

Then there is Nkem who studied General Art and obtained a Diploma from IMT, and then went on to take a degree in Biochemistry. Isn’t it coincidental that all three of these examples are female?

As part of the 2009 Life in My City Art Festival, a two-day Children Art Workshop was organised and held at the Alliance Francaise, Enugu. Most of the participants were SS2 students from Urban Girls Senior Secondary School, Enugu.

A poll conducted by me among them; showed that only three of the twelve participants seriously wanted to further study Art and become full-time studio artists. Eight others had rather unusual ambitions of becoming a doctor-artist, accountant-artist, surveyor-artist and other combinations!

Uche Agonsi was the facilitator for the drawing and ceramics classes. The participants were asked to draw a sitting model within thirty minutes; to drive home the point that drawing is the primary foundation for Art.

They were then put through the techniques of preparing clay for ceramic work; and then asked to produce flower vases and buildings of their own design.

“I want to teach them simple ceramic techniques without much equipment and tools. The idea of the workshop is to create art awareness, encourage young artists on artistic skills and eventually create artists,” Agonsi explained.

An accomplished artist and gallery-owner Uche Agonsi was the fourth-prize winner at the 2009 Life in My City Art Festival competition with his ceramics installation, ‘National Anthem’.

For Chukz Okonkwo, an Art graduate from IMT and a full-time studio artist who taught the participants painting at the workshop, his intention was “to let them know that Art is quite promising and that through Art they can achieve a lot and use their craft to be self-employed.”

Going by the works produced by the participants and put on exhibition at the Exhibition Hall of Alliance Francaise, a lot of these Enugu secondary school children have talent and the promise of becoming good to great artists if they choose to be.

Sixteen year-old Oduche A. Ifeyinwa an SS2 student of Urban Girls Senior Secondary School and workshop participant was very enthusiastic; especially as she “learnt how to paint and use poster colours for designing,” adding that “we don’t learn painting in school.”

She is obviously talented as she already makes leather sandals that sell well and her workshop works show some proficiency. She is determined to study Art at the University and hopefully within a decade she will be a welcome addition to Nigeria’s wealth of young creative artists!

Otherwise, I’m focused on my chapters so bear with me until … well, I’ve already come across the next book that might remit a little review here, but only if I get stuck with my argument (which I don’t hope for) and need a pretext to think in more detail about some minor aspect of my research.