If you do not want to incur the wrath of
the average Nigerian unforgivably, do not hurt what they consider to be
their ethnic or religious ego. Now, the tricky part of the deal is that
you may never know what they so consider until you already would have
crossed the line, in their own reckoning...
And God help you when you do!
Why? Because they will come at you with
everything they have, asking no questions, speculating about your
motives, sparing no invective's at getting back at you. Before you realize it, a crowd would gather around him in sympathy, jointly
vilifying you and implying motives you never intended, sometimes, even
you will question your own good intentions. Such is the passion of the
Nigerian when tribe and religion are concerned.
In joining the conversations surrounding
the recent unveiling of the statue of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo,
for instance, I would start by wondering why Governor Akinwunmi Ambode
thought up the idea in the first instance.
The sage hailed from neighboring Ogun
State and lived most of his life in Ibadan, where he superintended over
the affairs of the Western Region and impacted in no small measure. I
will be curious about why Lagos, which was technically not part of
Awolowo’s area of influence in the First Republic, would immortalize him
in a way that neither his state of origin nor residence is currently
thinking.
If I were to answer my own question, I
would imagine that a blend of an appreciation of what Awolowo
represented and possibly, a love for arts and culture, which Ambode has
displayed in appreciable measure in his 29 months as governor of Lagos
State, inspired the decision to commission the artwork that has now
become the object of public discontent.
I do not think public discontent itself
should be unwelcome in the circumstance though. Public artworks, like
that of Awolowo’s unveiled last week, have provoked public angst from
creation. When leaders would generally initiate public artworks as
emblems of the synergistic relationship between art and the state, the
public has always raised questions ranging from the cost of such
artworks, their appropriateness and the essential demands of the realism
in artistic representations of reality. A situation, Alastair Sooke,
art critic with The Daily Telegraph, describes in a 2014 article as
“pleasing neither art critics nor the public.”
But the ethnic and religious egos in
Nigeria usually thrive on emotionalism and take things personal behind
reasons as such stated above.
And so, the criticism that has mounted
against this recent initiative of the Lagos State Government has come
with all sorts of suggestions including the chance that Ambode was
considering his possible 2019 re-election bid in approving this Awolowo
symbol.
The argument by this group, which was
pursued with noticeable vehemence as evidenced in a news release, was
that Ambode did this to enhance his prospects for a re-election.
I isolate this conjecture because I find
it to be the most laughable of all the insinuations that I encountered
in examining the public fury that greeted this event.
Even if all Yoruba people of the
South-West Nigeria were absolutely committed to the ideals of Awolowo,
as we know they are not, would it be possible to have all of them vote
for a candidate simply because he has commissioned a public art piece in
the name of the late sage? That is without considering a cosmopolitan
nature which bestows the most liberalized electorate status on the city
of Lagos.
But an impassioned people, swimming on
the wave of their exclusive bragging right of shared ethnicity with a
man whose intellectual essence transcends the political legacy upon
which a lot of this criticism stands, are not likely to look at things
from this perspective.
Without any apology to anyone for
example, I consider myself to be a follower of Awolowo even though I
have never belonged to any political party.
I have read almost all the books
written by the great thinker, including the collection of his speeches
and I testify that Awolowo was more than a politician who went about
displaying the victory sign that characterized his politics.
He was a prophet, writer, philosopher
and transformation leader rolled into one. If you, for instance, lay
your hands on Awolowo’s first book delivered to the world in 1947 under
the title: Path to Nigerian Freedom, you would imagine that it was
written in the Nigeria of today. There is no tribulation, lack or
situation that Nigeria currently faces that this great man did not talk
or warn about and offered solutions to in his lifetime. How do we then
insist that such a man must be restricted to a particular type of
posture or dressing in a symbolic artwork commissioned three decades
after his transition?
One of the points of disagreement is
that of the image of a sitting Awolowo for instance – but I find that
really curious; and here is why. Some of the most memorable words I read
from the man under discussion are the following: “While many men in
power and public office are busy carousing in the midst of women of easy
virtues and men of low morals, I, as a few others like me, am busy at
my desk thinking about the problems of Nigeria and proffering solutions.
Only deep can call to the deep.”
How do we then suggest that such a man
must as a matter of compulsion be only represented on his feet when we
can establish that his strength, which is speaking on his feet, actually
came from moment of deep contemplation and studying in his private
chambers?
And then there is the place of artistic license, which allows an artist the liberty to employ his own insight,
even deviate from the norm, in the representation of reality.
One must agree that the same freedom
which the artist has to express himself extends to the critic and even
general public in the appreciation and condemnation of his work. But in
doing that, critics should stay within the limits of the arts without
employing extraneous elements like ethnic and religious. When we do that
and go on to dictate modes that artwork must take, we become
unnecessarily tyrannical.
An American musician, Steve Peters, was
once quoted as saying: “It’s not an artist’s job to please anyone but
bravely do the work that they are most compelled to do. It’s the
public’s job to bravely seek out and appreciate the work that resonates
with them.” We need to take art for what it is, appreciate it when it
resonates with us, critique it as much as we would, but spare the
artist, the liberty to be himself.
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