Category Archives: Nigeria
Africa IMF Reports : Nigeria 2010
Abavo Market, Nigeria
[Photo credit: airpanther]
IMF reports for Nigeria 2010
Press Release
Statement at the Conclusion of an IMF Mission to Nigeria
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2010/pr10459.htmTranscript of the Civil Society Organizations Townhall Meeting (includes Nigeria)
http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2010/tr100710cso.htm
All information from http://www.imf.org
To view and print pdf files you need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader which is available at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html
Suggested Books (US)
Nigeria Book Review : Oil, Politics and Violence
Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture explained
In the year that many Nigerians celebrate their 50th Anniversary of Independence, it is also an opportunity to reflect on all that has happened since 1960. If you do a search on Amazon you’ll find quite a number of Nigeria books 
One of these books, Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture 1966-1976, is by Max Siollun, a well respected Nigerian historian, who has a gift of making the history of this complex country clearer to non-specialists.
In his book 
I like the way this book sets the scene by presenting us with a series of maps at the beginning. Before the opening pages we are presented with a map of the major ethnic groups, although I’m not quite sure why that map was not included with the other maps in the preface as it would go better with the map of major Nigerian languages and the more general map locating Nigeria in Africa would have been better in its place, but that is just my preference.  The series of historical maps in the preface cover the political development  from the four regions of 1966  to the present 36 States and are worth referring back to from time to time.
It is impossible to appreciate the political complexity of Nigeria without a passing understanding of how the country came into being, its ethnic complexity and its mineral wealth and this book provides good background material in the preface and the opening chapter for those who are not so familiar with Nigeria.  The writer introduces us to these issues in the opening chapters by describing the situation leading up to independence and  introducing us to several strands - political and military – which culminate in the post-independence turmoil of 1966 which was a pivotal and dreadful year.
It is important to understand that like many African countries ‘Nigeria’ was an artificial construct.
The country was artificially constructed by a colonial power without the consent of its citizens. Over 250 ethnic groups were arbitrarily herded together into an unwieldy and non-consensual union by the UK. Nigeria was so ethnically, religiously and linguistically complex that even some of its leading politicians initially doubted it could constitute a real country.
The division of the huge area called Nigeria into the original 3 Regions by the British in the earlier part of the 20th century was largely pragmatic. The very large Northern Region was predominantly Muslim and dominated by the Hausa and Fulani, while the predominantly Christian south was dominated by two competing groups, the Yoruba and the Igbo. Among these main groups were 250 other ethnic groups of varying size. Most ethnic groups had little in common, and Siollun says that ‘The cultural differences between the ethnic groups made it virtually impossible for Nigerians to have any commonality of purpose’. It was within this artificially constructed maelstrom that political divides took on the identity and ideology of the these three geo-political regions.  The Western Region in the south was further divided into a Mid-Western region in 1963 after rising tensions and what could almost be considered the first coup plot. The antagonism between the north and south continued after independence and was further exacerbated by the fragmentation in the more numerous south and the uneven distribution of mineral wealth.
It is as a military historian that Siollun has his strength and this shows in his masterly analysis in the chapters that introduce the military background to the coups and the detailed description and analysis of the coups themselves. In some ways, although this is devastatingly real, I was reminded of a detective novel as the protagonists are revealed and their motives and actions analysed.
It would be tempting to give you a chapter by chapter summary of how the coup culture developed, but you’ll just have to read the book to understand the depth of detail that gives a fascinating insight into the way that friends can become rivals and enemies, and to see how Siollun answers the question of ‘how an apolitical professional army with less than fifty indigenous officers at independence in 1960 became politicized and overthrew its country’s government less than six years later’.
The lessons to be learnt from the critical analysis in this book are grim but necessary reading. Siollun’s final points are that ‘most of the coups …. were carried out by the same cabal of officers, and that ‘an unpunished coup will be followed by a bloodier coup’. Â It is also significant that it was only after 1999 when ‘all the serving army officers who had held political office for 6 months or more were compulsorily retired’ that the events set in motion in 1966 that lead to the military coups and military rule were able to be put to rest.
I think this book will become a seminal source for Nigerian historians and will be a fascinating read for anyone interested in Nigeria and in how coups develop.
Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture (1966-1976) by Max Siollun, Algora Publishing, New York. 2009 Â ISBN: 9780875867083
Available at Amazon:Oil, Politics and Violence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture 1966-1976
Disclosure: I was provided with a free copy of this book to review by Max Siollun
Book Review : My Nigeria, Peter Cunliffe-Jones
Lagos Nigeria
[Photo credit: airpanther]
Peter Cunliffe-Jones, My Nigeria, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 238 pp. $26.00 (Hbk). ISBN 978-0-230-62023-0-52600
Reviewed by Dr Maggie Canvin
How to get a copy
My Nigeria: Five Decades of Independence
Review: Nigeria – Colonial legacy in a developing power, a personal memoir
As Nigeria celebrates  50 years of independence this book aids the understanding of both the colonial legacy and the challenges facing the country. Written in a personal manner by a veteran journalist whose family have been deeply involved in Nigeria’s history, this very readable account is a worthy addition to the corpus of post-colonial history books, and should be of interest to both historians and the general public.
The book leads us from an introduction to the author’s connection to Nigeria through three arrivals into colonial and more recent history.  Cunliffe-Jones’s  great-grandmother’s cousin Edward was the first to arrive in Nigeria in 1883. He came to the country as part of the colonising enterprise and his job was to sieze land, through whatever means, to expand the Empire. By the time Cunliffe-Jones’s grandfather, Sir Hugo Marshall, arrived some 40 years later in 1928, Nigeria was under the firm control of the British Empire and he was there to govern in a paternalistic mode. The author’s own arrivals in 1988 and again in 1998 were for more personal reasons and the book explores these.
Firstly we are plunged into contemporary Lagos where Cunliffe-Jones lived from 1998 as a journalist and we see the city through the author’s eyes. Lagos has had the reputation as a dangerous city and Cunliffe-Jones account reinforces that. The racy style of the writing helps the reader to experience life in Lagos with its dangers and delights. Always underlining the narrative is the sense of the history and politics of the place.  Vignettes are placed in the text to add first person accounts to the political history. There is a sense of reality, lived-in history, not just dry facts and figures. The contemporary context for the historical is explored. Nigeria in the late 1990s was a dangerous place. Some of these stories in Chapter 2 will shock you by their brutality. Even Cunliffe-Jones, the hardened journalist, is sickened. It is not an easy chapter to read in parts.
From Chapter 3 onwards the focus changes to historical exploration. Cunliffe-Jones explores the reasons behind Nigeria’s current troubles by looking at the country’s history and culture through the lens of his own family.  Picking up the threads from the Prologue he starts with the arrival of his ancestor, Edward Burns in 1883 and introduces us to the long 40,000 year history of human settlement in the area, ranging from the nomadic early settlers; the kingdom states of the northern Kanem-Borneo Empire of around 850 AD which included the introduction of Islam in the 11th century, trade routes to Egypt and quite extensive development including schools and military forces; to the Hausa states of the 11th to 13th centuries AD and the Yoruba kingdoms. The shaping through conquest of what would later become the country of Nigeria is covered including the coming of the trans-Atlantic slave trade which changed society in Nigeria. From this point on, the history of Nigeria is inextricably linked to external trade, Empire building and finally the fight to end slavery.  The narrative makes clear that if persuasion did not work, then force was used to expand the European grasp of territory.  Colonial rule was seen as ‘development’ but above all, the country of Nigeria was born of financial expediency to become a colony and there was no unity or involvement of Nigerians themselves in that.
The age of colonial government is seen through the eyes of Cunliffe-Jones’s grandfather who starts off in 1928 with good intentions and who helped craft the country’s constitution and helped prepare the way for independence. He left in 1955 feeling that too little had been done to prepare people for the elected government that was to come with independence in 1960. This feeling was born out by the descent of the newly independent Nigeria into civil war and the subsequent military rule or rather ‘misrule’. These chapters make grim reading but I found this one of the most interesting sections of the book.
The investigative journalist reappears in the latter sections of the book as Cunliffe-Jones seeks to understand what went wrong and where the future may be going. He explores the new dimensions rich mineral deposits brought to already strife-ridden Nigeria. Oil was discovered in 1956 in the Niger Delta but despite these ‘riches’ local people remain as poor as ever, malaria is rife, and they cannot fish and farm as before.  Corruption is a word often associated with Nigeria and the book explores some of the facets of this. The sad thing is that it has become ‘normalised’ and expected. The religious divide between Islam and Christianity is explored but Cunliffe-Jones sees some signs of integration, both of religious and ethnic groups.  At the same time he sees a failure of people being able to work together both locally and nationally. Finally the failure of leadership is explored, and perhaps comes in for the most damning criticism.  As for the future, Cunliffe-Jones is hopeful. New technology aids campaigning, giving power back to people and giving the possibility of positive change. Political reform is possible, and it is Nigerians themselves who will decide the direction the future takes.
Suggested Books
- A History of Nigeria
- The Trouble with Nigeria – Chinua Achebe
Visit Amazon’s Chinua Achebe Page
Disclosure: I was provided with this a free copy of this book to review by Palmgrave Macmillan
African trees and lost knowledge
The following post appeared on H-AfrArts as part of a discussion on African tree rings. I find this comment by Professor Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie very poignant and quite distressing. So much more than ‘just’ trees are being lost.
Village trees in Nigeria
I spent my teenage years farming in my hometown. It was at this time quite a village, with no running water or electricity but with massive groves of old growth trees, many dating back to before the founding of the town in the 15th century. We practiced slash and burn agriculture on a land-rotation basis, with land left fallow for five years between each rotation, which meant that clearing our patches of farmland involved cutting down many trees (this system fell apart in 1987 when the collapsing Nigerian economy forced many of my kinsmen back to the village and caused a massive stampede for available land. What was once the most fertile land in West Africa was then farmed into exhaustion, but that’s another story).
I basically saw the destruction of the old-growth forests and the fall of great trees that were as much part of the town’s pantheon of ancestral figures: trees that had their own names and titles, and received their own formal salutations: *Agbono Abo*, *Oke Osisi*, *Alusi Ogodo*. I was initially baffled when, on the way to the farms in the morning, I saw people saluting the trees. I understood later they were very much part of the population of the village. At the center of the village, our main square Abo-Ano* (four heaths) where the four lineage paths met, there were four great trees, giant old growth trees towering over the town. Of this ancient grove, only one tree remains, the King’s tree (*Abo-Obi*): cutting it down would imply the demise of the throne and this is why it survives.
I am saying in essence that I have seen a huge number of trees cut down in my time and nearly all the trees I have seen cut down had tree rings in them. The density and clarity of the rings vary from tree to tree although some trees (silk cotton trees especially) didn’t seem to have them. When the silk cotton tree in front of our house was cut down, it’s trunk lay there for four rainy seasons until it turned to mush: it became waterlogged and then literally disintegrated into the soil. When the main grove at Abo Ano was cut down, the trunks lay there for a full season before they were hauled away. I remember clearly walking by these trunks and noting that they had rings on them. I noticed this because each tree in the grove was a different type of tree: there were two Iroko trees (*Chlorofora Excelsia*), one giant silk cotton tree (*Ceiba Petandra*) and the king’s tree, which still stands, was an ebony tree. It is still the largest tree I have seen anywhere.
The ancient groves are gone now, and the last time I visited my home, the town was naked. All the large trees were gone except for *Abo-Obi*, the King’s tree, which now stands alone where there used to be four great trees. The trees in the forest are also gone, logged off for sale to Chinese merchants who prowl the rural areas buying up whole tracts of land and deforesting them. (A sculptor friend complained to me that she could no longer find ebony for sale in local wood markets: it was her preferred wood for sculpture but Chinese merchants have bought up the entire supply for export).
Since tree rings are evidence of significant life of these trees, the deforestation and very young age of the remaining trees will soon probably render the question moot. As for asking the local people for their oral histories of these trees, don’t bother. Those who know this history, i.e. those who actually lived in an era when these histories was required learning, hence people like my kinsmen who saluted the great trees and saw them as custodians of knowledge, most of them are dead and long forgotten.
The tragedy of African knowledge is that most of what was painstakingly accumulated through sustained engagement with the forest over the centuries was lost in contemporary times when that knowledge was defined as useless. When I retuned to the village, it took me ten years to even begin to crack the facade of this knowledge and I wouldn’t have learned any of it if my cousins didn’t rally around to teach me. With the forest gone, there is no way to teach any of my kinsmen of this generation about what the forest meant and how to speak to the trees.
On my last visit home, I went to visit *Abo-Ano* for what might very well be the last time. I sat under the King’s tree for a while and listened to the rustle of his great branches. I’m still here, he said, the throne still stands, earth abides. I sat awhile and then stood and left the village. It is true you really can’t go back home again.
Prof. Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie
History of Art & Architecture
University of California, Santa BarbaraH-AfrArts
H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture
E -Mail:Â H-AFRARTS@H-NET.MSU.EDU
http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
Suggested Books
- Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa
- The Baobab and the Mango Tree: Africa, the Asian Tigers and the Developing World
Other Africa environment books
Nigeria : Motivation and Perceptions of Teachers
Teacher’s voices
This paper, Teachers’ voice: a policy research report on teachers’ motivation and perceptions of their profession in Nigeria, produced by Voluntary Service Overseas (2008) is interesting and important because it gives voice to teachers’ concerns. Teachers are often ignored in the discourse about education reform and this report shows their opinions and experiences should be listened to.
It is increasingly recognised that in some countries teachers’ efforts are sometimes unsustainable, due to factors influencing motivation. This report by VSO considers teachers in Nigeria and highlights how they are working in challenging conditions aggravated by poor remuneration, delays in the administration of salaries, allowances and promotions and disrespect from government, parents and the community at large.
The report details how teachers feel ignored in the decision-making process and powerless in their efforts to improve the learning experience of their students, despite their desire and eagerness. Policy makers are putting demands and expectations on teachers to carry out new initiatives without their involvement. This not only creates the feeling of ignorance from above, but also presents many obstacles in the implementation of new plans.
Recommendations include:
- employ enough teachers to comply with the government’s recommended pupil-teacher ratio of
35:1, ensuring an adequate number of teachers per school- stakeholders, including teachers, must be involved in education policymaking, implementation
and evaluation as a responsibility as well as a right- the delivery system of school materials needs to be improved and streamlined through the setting up of regional networks for storage and distribution
- the NUT should develop well-informed positions on debates about quality and relevance of
education as well as fighting for the betterment of teachersThe report concludes that research has demonstrates the need for change in the Nigerian education system, confirmed by the present demotivated, devalued and demoralised workforce. Focusing on core issues revealed in this study for reform, would make teachers feel more motivated and satisfied in their job and would deliver a better quality of education to future generations.
Download a pdf of Teachers’ voice: a policy research report on teachers’ motivation and perceptions of their profession in Nigeria
Suggested Books
Africa Arts : Benin1897.com Art and the Restitution Question
A colloquium and Exhibition
The colloquium and travelling art exhibition called Benin1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question by Benin artist Peju Layiwola took place from 8th April-30th May 2010 in the main auditorium gallery of the University of Lagos in Nigeria. You will find the site http://www.benin1897.com of interest.
The artist-artist scholar, Peju Layiwola, a Lecturer in the Department of Creative Arts, University of Lagos will be showing her recent works in a solo exhibition entitled Benin1897.com: Art and the Restitution Question at the Main auditorium gallery of the University of Lagos, Nigeria. Â The exhibition will be declared open by HRH, Prince Edun Akenzua, the Enogie of Obazuwa. Â Subsequently after this opening, the exhibition will travel from Lagos through, Ibadan, Abuja and Benin till the end of the year. The exhibition will hold in Ibadan from 19 August to 19 September at the Museum of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan. Â The Edo State Government will be hosting the show later at the Benin Venue and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Abuja. This exhibition comes up to mark the 50th year anniversary of Nigeria.
Benin1897.com provokes you to step into a triple-layer of discursive event as seen through the exhibition of the artist, Peju Layiwola, a colloquium and publication by nine scholars drawn from across the globe on the vexed issue of art-stripping and the restitution question in relation to Benin. Benin1897.com refers to the British ‘Punitive’ Expedition and also presents an artist’s impression of this cultural rape of Benin. It seeks to recontextualise the event of the invasion, during which the nascent British imperialists sacked an ancient government and its monarch, Ovonramwen (ruled c.1888-1897), and looted its, largely bronze and ivory, art works over a schism that seems more orchestrated than real. Till date, families from the old kingdom still speak of their losses, in human and material terms, yet our world speaks tongue-in-cheek.
Over the years, Peju Layiwola has been experimenting with forms and media ranging from terracotta, copper, bronze and gold, among others. The current exhibition could as well be described as her most ambitious; at once affective and deeply contemplative, it arrives with a 244-page publication and catalogue with 154 colour illustrations. The pathos of the Omo N’Oba’s foreword in the catalogue is unmistakable: “The year 1897 means much to me and my people; it was the year the British invaded our land and forcefully removed thousands of our bronze and ivory works from my great grandfather, Oba Ovonramwen’s Palace.â€
Such rendering also runs through Peju Layiwola, herself a scion of the Benin kingdom; A granddaughter of Oba Akenzua II (1933-1979) and a daughter of the sculptress, Princess Elizabeth Olowu.  Early sneak reviews suggest that, besides its intellectual content, this effort could equally be read as an exercise in filial cultural intervention, something not just of a professional obligation but an anxiety to fill an autobiographical void. Through this cultural action for freedom, the past seems to be indicting the present, as one off-spring of a brutish encounter is beginning to throw barbs of indictment at past abuse of power. Speaking in a tone quite similar to HRM, Peju in relation to the stolen artefacts, remarks sharply that: “They who once enjoyed the splendour of the palace are now trapped behind glass wall in foreign lands.â€
The exhibition opens with a colloquium on the issue of restitution and the repatriation of cultural property to Nigeria. Â Speakers are Professor Folarin Shyllon, Former Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan and Professor Ademola Popoola, Â Dean, Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife. Â The chair of the colloquium is Professor Akin Oyebode, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos
This historical exhibition is expected to run for about two months to enable as many primary and secondary schools organize study tours. Â Workbooks for students will be made available for free at the venue.
The accompanying publication features essays by
Kwame Opoku, Commentator on Cultural Affairs.
Folarin Shyllon, Former Dean of Law, University of Ibadan, Nigeria,
Professor Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA,
Professor Freida High, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA,
Mimi Wolford, Director, Mbari Institute for Contemporary African Art, Washington DC, USA ,
Professor  Mabel Evwierhoma, University of Abuja,  Nigeria,
Benson Eluma, Cambridge University, UK,
Akinwale Onipede, University of Lagos. Nigeria,
Dr Victor Osaro Edo, University of Ibadan, Nigeria,
Dr Peju Layiwola, University of Lagos, Nigeria,
Dr Sola Olorunyomi, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, co-editor and curator.
This project is supported by The Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC), the Edo State Government, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Abuja, the University of Lagos and the University of Ibadan.
More Information
For more information, visit http://www.benin1897.com
Sola Olorunyomi (curator)
Suggested Books
Benin: Royal Arts of a West African Kingdom (Art Institute of Chicago)
Benin: Kings and Rituals
Africa Arts Nigeria : Ben Enwonwu – The Making of an African Modernist
About the Book
Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie. Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist. Rochester University of Rochester Press, 2008. xxiii + 295 pp. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-58046-235-8.
US Amazon:Â Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist (Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora)
Book Review
The Nsukka Artists and Nigerian Contemporary Art
The Shattered Gourd: Yoruba Forms in Twentieth Century American Art (Samuel and Althea Stroum Book)
Reviewed by Gitti Salami (University of Kansas)
Via H-AfrArts, H-Net Reviews. April, 2010
Global Modernism’s Rootedness in Colonial Africa
Ben Enwonwu, as the most prominent African artist in international circles during the colonial period, was the focus of considerable European critical evaluation, beginning with his initial and highly successful participation in a 1937 group exhibition at the Zwemmer Gallery in London. Enwonwu’s contributions to avant-garde art in Europe were perceived as “really African” (p. 101); that is, distinct from, and superior to, as one reviewer put it, the “pale copycat perversity” of white Europeans’ attempts at assimilating African expressive forms (p. 101). Yet who in the international community today conjures up an image of Enwonwu or his work when contemplating the rise of modernism?
Sylvester Ogbechie has set out to restore Enwonwu’s legacy and, more importantly, his subjectivity, in Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist, deliberately making use of a seemingly outmoded format, the artist monograph, in order to do it. In the process, he has written a book that is much broader in scope, tackling a number of intertwined theoretical narratives. First and foremost, it aims to redirect the debate about “alternative modernisms,” which, according to the author, “succumbs to this lure of essentialized difference by mediating the reception of non-Western contexts as secondary locations for the unfolding of the European ethos” (p. 10). Ogbechie suggests instead, and the difference is subtle but profound, that there is only one modernism. It emerged globally out of the colonial encounter, and European modernism represents merely one of its many facets. Ogbechie uses primary documents that attest to Enwonwu’s reception in Europe to support his assertion that Western and non-Western “contexts owe their canonical forms to reciprocal appropriations engendered within an international context of modernity” (p. 7).
Second, Ogbechie seeks to redress the erasure of the considerable achievements of African pioneer modernists from the discourse on African art. Thus far, texts on twentieth-century African art have tended to skip over the colonial period. They commonly propose a “short century,” during which Africans generated a belated response to modernity only after most African nations gained Independence around 1960.[1] This view, Ogbechie explains, is untenable. By allowing for a six-decade period of gestation, it buys into the colonizer’s civilizing scheme and affirms Europe’s construction of a temporal distance between the “West and the Rest.”[2] Furthermore, such texts erroneously attribute the invention of a new, modern African visual language as well as the positioning of the fine artist in modern African society to postcolonial artists.
Third, Ogbechie expends considerable effort to provide insight into Enwonwu’s intellectual grounding in Igbo aesthetics and philosophy. His step-by-step analysis demonstrates how the artist wrestled over a period of five decades to synthesize Western techniques with a sensibility that emerged from deeply ingrained Igbo artistic traditions. This constitutes a preemptive measure designed to make it impossible for the reader to interpret Enwonwu’s work as mere mimetic exercise, or as third-rate. Enwonwu thought of his own work as involving a deeper, conceptual exploration of Igbo knowledge systems as opposed to European artists who were preoccupied primarily with beauty and form. He saw in his work an evocation of the wonder of the invisible world, similar to that engendered by masquerades (ime mmonwu) creating spirits. Enwonwu also vehemently rejected the European notion of a self-centered artist genius and instead embraced an Igbo model of the artist as a socially responsible person.
Ogbechie organizes his text into six chapters that delineate various phases of the artist’s life. Chapter headings all begin with a verb (“Making Man,” “Making Meaning,” “Making a Life,” “Making Ideals,” “Making Peace,” and “Making History”) not merely to recognize Enwonwu’s agency, but to emphasize it. A detailed account traces Enwonwu’s development from his earliest exposure to his father’s sculptural practice within the iba, a sacred space in Igbo houses devoted to honoring spirits, through his period under the tutelage of Kenneth C. Murray that ended with international success at age twenty at the Zwemmer Gallery. During the years that he was teaching on behalf of the colonial government at Umuahia, Calabar, Ikot Ekpene, and Benin City (1937-44), themes arose that preoccupied him for the remainder of his life: a fascination with shrines and their custodians; female dancers engaged in ritual practice; and the Onitsha-Igbo mmonwu pantheon, whose members appear among the living as masquerades. A solo exhibition in Lagos in 1944 resulted in his receiving a joint Shell and colonial government-sponsored scholarship for graduate study in London, and, in 1948, Enwonwu graduated with a Diploma from the Slade School of Fine Arts, becoming the first African to do so. This set the stage for an international career with participation in group exhibitions of modern art in Paris as early as 1946, solo exhibitions in London (1947) and the United States (1962), interviews broadcast by the BBC as early as 1948, induction into the Royal Society of British Artists the same year, commissions for sculptures of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles shortly thereafter, and the acquisition of a Medal of the Order of the British Empire in 1956. Enwonwu’s was a career that in terms of scope and name recognition was really not replicated until the rise of Yinka Shonibare MBE during the 1990s.
Enwonwu’s success placed him in an ambiguous position relative to both the colonial government and African nationalists, forcing him to constantly negotiate his subjectivity in response to the conflicting expectations of various constituencies. The colonial government used Enwonwu as a stellar example of its civilizing mission and construed his success in terms of its benevolent tutelage; African nationalists fighting for liberation from colonialism interpreted his international stature as evidence of African capability and used it to argue for Africa’s emancipation. Upon returning to Nigeria as art advisor to the government, Enwonwu found himself moving among members of the upper echelons of colonial society. Again, his relationship to the colonial government forced him to curtail his role as an activist with a Pan-African vision, led to his eventual rejection by a younger generation of Nigerian artists, and ultimately contributed to the “historical amnesia” regarding his highly successful and prolific career (p. 225).
Ogbechie’s detailed text provides the reader with a number of secondary discussions as well. Drawing on his intimate knowledge of the culture and numerous interviews with Enwonwu, Ogbechie gives a description of Onitsha-Igbo masquerades and an explanation of their bearing on Enwonwu’s mythopoetic conception of creativity that is not only brilliant, but relevant to the oeuvre of many other modern African artists. His argument emphasizes Enwonwu’s distance from mere mimesis of European conventions and the tremendous achievement entailed in his invention of a visual language appropriate for his particular local modern context.
Sylvester Ogbechie’s monograph on Enwonwu, an artist who has engaged the author since he first encountered the sculptor’s work _Anyanwu _outside the National Museum in Lagos when he was a secondary-school student, is a landmark work.[3] It is the first artist monograph to restore the subjectivity of an African modernist artist of the colonial period with regard to his contributions to global modernism, and, alongside Elizabeth Harney’s interrogation of the post-independence Senegalese art world, one of the first book-length projects in African art scholarship devoted to countering the West’s hegemonic discourse regarding its particular version of modernity’s claim to universality and preeminence.[4]
The scholarship is superb. Unfortunately, the book’s illustrations do not match the quality of the research and writing. Most of the images are poor in quality, and their number does not adequately support Ogbechie’s arguments. Despite this flaw, the book is a seminal work that will stimulate numerous dissertations and monographs on modern African art and artists.
Notes [1]. Ogbechie’s use of the term “short century” (pp. xv-xvi) is a direct reference to and critique of Okwui Enwezor’s 2001 exhibition and catalogue _The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994 _(New York: Prestel, 2001). [2]. This term was coined by Johannes Fabian, _Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object _(New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 35. [3]. Ogbechie writes about this encounter in his B.A thesis, _Ben Enwonwu in the Art Historical Account of Modern Nigerian Art _(University of Nigeria,1988), 2. [4]. Elizabeth Harney, _In Senghor’s Shadow: Art, Politics, and the Avant-Garde in Senegal, 1960-1995 _(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004).
Review Citation
Gitti Salami. Review of Ogbechie, Sylvester Okwunodu, _Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist_. H-AfrArts, H-Net Reviews. April, 2010. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=29943 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
H-AfrArts H-Net Network for African Expressive Culture E -Mail: H-AFRARTS@H-NET.MSU.EDU http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~artsweb/
Suggested Books
- The Shattered Gourd: Yoruba Forms in Twentieth Century American Art (Samuel and Althea Stroum Book)
- The Nsukka Artists and Nigerian Contemporary Art
Nigeria : Chabad of Central Africa Opens First Day Camp
Nigeria’s Jews
From time to time I write about religious issues in African countries. Today I received a press release about a trip by the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish emissary to Central Africa, including Nigeria. I have to admit I had to search to find out what Chabad was! I am ashamed to say that I did not know it is one of the world’s largest Hasidic Jewish movements. Neither did I know that there is a large Jewish community in Nigeria. So, I am rather glad that I received that press release because it widened my understanding.
This year, school break in Nigeria coincided with Passover. For Chabad emissary to Central Africa, Rabbi Shlomo Bentolila, it provided an opportunity too obvious to ignore, and for the first time in Central African history, a Jewish camp—with two branch locations—was established, drawing a total of 70 Jewish children.
For years now, Bentolila—who arrived to Central Africa more than twenty years ago— has been sending Chabad rabbinical students to Nigeria to host Jewish activities, including holiday services, educational seminars and children’s programs. In the past, these programs typically drew crowds of between 40 to 200 people.
Nigeria’s Jews generally live in the country’s capital city of Abuja or in Lagos, a port city and the second most populous city in Africa. A significant number of Israelis also live in Ibadan……
Suggested Books
Special Needs Education in Africa
One of the main problems in writing about special needs education in Africa is a lack of documentation at all levels. Very few evaluation studies seem to have been done. However, that does not mean that children with special needs are being ignored by educators.
Emma and Dogbeda, students at the Volta School for the Mentally Challenged in Gbi-Kledjo, Volta Region, Ghana. Emma is deaf but has received no concrete diagnosis for her mental condition, and Dogbeda suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) at age three.
[Photo credit: Allison Stillwell under a Creative Commons license]
The education of pupils with special educational needs in Africa
At a conference in Manchester, UK in 2000 a paper was presented by C.E.J. Grol on ‘The Education of Pupils with Special Educational Needs in Africa, looked at within the African context’. The paper is on the conference site (click the link above). This paper should be a good starting point for anyone interested in Special Needs Education in Africa, and the extensive bibliography should be very helpful if you can get a copy of books and papers through inter-university loan.
In this paper Grol critically looked at special needs education projects in Botswana, Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Â Grol describes two approaches to special needs education – segregation and inclusion and cites the periodical ‘Special Needs Education’Â published by the Uganda National Institute of Special Education (UNISE), a department of the Makarere University in Kampala.
1. Special Education’ suggests a “special”, segregated approach to the education of pupils with Special Educational Needs; an education in schools and/or institutions for special education only.
2. ‘Special Needs Education’ indicates the education of pupils with SEN within an inclusive environment. This educational approach distinguishes between two types:
2.1. ‘Mainstreaming/ Integration’: an approach by which pupils with SEN are integrated in different ways in normal schools. This approach tends to rely on a relatively small number of ordinary schools being equipped with the resources to admit pupils with SEN.
2.2. ‘Inclusion’: an approach by which all ordinary schools cater for pupils with SEN as well. All schools include pupils with physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic, sensory or other needs.
There is debate about both these options. Some disabilities are easier to accommodate in mainstream schools than others. Africa has a history of inclusion of physical disablement in mainstream schooling and it is not unusual to see children in wheelchairs or on crutches attending mainstream schools. However, the article shows that the Danish educator Kristensen, whilst arguing for inclusion, also makes the argument for segregation in special classes for pupils with particular special needs such as deaf pupils and pupils with severe mental problems, pupils with autism, pupils with profound emotional disturbances and pupils with multiple disabilities.
Grol also covers issues such as the African curriculum, Teachers in Africa and The medium of instruction in Africa. This last point he argues that
Observations have discovered that the formal education medium of instruction is frequently not even the second, but the third or fourth language of a pupil. It might be obvious that language policy actually leads to SEN in Africa.
Grol further discusses African attitudes towards children with disability and develops a diagram which shows the isolation and neglect many children with disabilities face, derived from Hop, M. 1996. Attitudes towards Disabled Children in Botswana: An Action Research into the Attitudes of Students and Batswana in general. Research Project Masters Degree Special Educational Needs. Utrecht: Hogeschool van Utrecht/ Seminarium voor Orthopedagogiek.
The diagram is shown below. I assume that by ‘witchcraft’ Â Grol is referring to ‘traditional religion’ or belief system. Grol makes some rather sweeping statements and generalities in this part of the discussion. He refers to ‘traditional African society’ as if it is homongenous and refers to ‘African religious life’ again as if it was homogenous. The reality is that African society is varied across the continent as is African religious life which includes varieties of so-called World religions and traditional religions. The comments he makes may hold for Botswana, but certainly do not do so across the continent as a whole. Having said that, if we look past the specific Botswanan beliefs and consider more general social constructions and beliefs about disability then the rest of the diagram may be useful. All children have a right to be educated and to be nurtured to reach their potential in life. The barriers to that happening may include societal feelings and behaviours which can result in isolation and lack of integration.
Botswana attitudes towards children with a disability summarised by Grol 2000
An additional resource which may be helpful is: Disability and Social Responses in Some Southern African Nations which is an extensive bibliography. Other bibliographies can be found from the Center for International Rehabilitation Research Information and Exchange Annotated Bibliographies
Suggested Books
Book Nigeria : A History of the Yoruba People by S. Adebanji Akintoye
Yoruba panel
[Photo credit : zug55]
Yoruba Book Review
A History of the Yoruba People, S. Adebanji Akintoye, Amalion Publishing, Februrary 2010
ISBN 978-2-35926-005-2 (Hard Back), Size: 234 x 156 mm, Extent: 512 pp, photographs, maps
A History of the Yoruba People is an audacious comprehensive exploration of the founding and growth of one of the most influential groups in Africa. With a population of nearly 40 million spread across Western Africa and diaspora communities in Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America and North America, the Yoruba are one of the most researched groups emanating from Africa. Yet, to date, very few attempts have tried to grapple fully with the historical foundations and development of a group that has contributed to shaping the way African communities are analysed from prehistoric to modern times.
In this commendable book, S. Adebanji Akintoye deploys four decades of historiography research with current interpretation and analyses to present the most complete and authoritative volume since Johnson’s work of the early twentieth century. The author traces the origins of the Yoruba from the legendary mythical beginnings, development of early Yoruba society, the revolution and primacy of Ife from the tenth to fifteen centuries, the founding of Yoruba kingdoms and the power of frontiers, and the rise and fall of Oyo empire. With this intelligible narrative backdrop, Akintoye then takes the reader through agencies of change in the nineteenth century and the rise of new kingdoms, and the emergence of transcontinental diaspora communities, down to the colonial and post-colonial political histories of the twentieth century and the socio economic and political transformations of the present day.
This exceptionally lucid account gathers and imparts a wealth of research and discourses on Yoruba studies for a wider group of readership than ever before.
About the Author
Professor S. Adebanji Akintoye has been in the front line of African and Yoruba history studies for four decades and was former Director of the Institute of African Studies at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Akintoye has taught in universities in Nigeria and the United States, has written three books, chapters in many joint books, and several articles in scholarly journals. He served on the Nigerian Senate from 1979 to 1983.
How to get a copy
A History of the Yoruba People
AFRICA
http://www.amalion.net/orderinfo_en/
For more information, www.amalion.net
Suggested Books (US)
Yoruba Culture: A Philosophical Account (Yoruba Culture in Context)
The Handbook of Yoruba Religious Concepts
Colloquial Yoruba: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series)
Yoruba-English/English-Yoruba Modern Practical Dictionary
French Institute for Research in Africa in Nigeria website
The French Institute for Research in Africa in Nigeria (IFRA Nigeria) is delighted to announce the reopening of its website at the following address: www.ifra-nigeria.org.
It will enhance IFRA’s capacity to make its work more widely available both within Nigeria and internationally.  Please have a look at it for more information about IFRA’s calls for papers, fieldwork grants, research programmes and publications. You can also have access online to transcripts of events organised by the institute, past issues of the IFRA Newsletter and to a database of the Nigerian press in Hausa.
IFRA is looking forward to seeing you online!
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L’Institut Français de Recherche en Afrique au Nigeria (IFRA Nigeria) est heureux de vous annoncer la réouverture de son site internet à l’adresse suivante : www.ifra-nigeria.org.
Ce site va permettre à l’IFRA d’améliorer sa capacité à faire connaître son travail aussi bien au Nigeria qu’internationalement. Vous êtes donc invités à le consulter pour avoir plus d’informations sur les appels à  contributions, les bourses de terrain, les programmes de recherche et les publications de l’institut. Le site offre également la possibilité d’accéder aux transcriptions des colloques et des conférences organisés par l’IFRA, à la lettre d’information de l’IFRA ainsi qu’à une base de données sur la presse nigériane en Haoussa.
L’équipe de l’IFRA est impatiente de vous retrouver en ligne !
Africa IMF Reports : Nigeria 2009
IMF reports for Nigeria 2009
Country Report No. 09/315: Nigeria: 2009 Article IV Consultation-Staff Report; Staff Supplement; Public Information Notice on the Executive Board Discussion; Statement by the IMF Staff Representative; and Statement by the Executive Director for Nigeria
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=23410.0
Public Information Notice: IMF Executive Board Concludes Article IV Consultation with Nigeria
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2009/pn09125.htm
Transcript of a Press Briefing by Caroline Atkinson, Director, External Relations, IMF
http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2009/tr102209.htm
Working Paper No. 09/218: Do Trading Partners Still Matter for Nigeria’s Growth? A Contribution to the Debate on Decoupling and Spillovers
Author/Editor: Obiora, Kingsley I.
Summary: Should policymakers still be concerned about economic growth in trading partners? Have developing and emerging market countries decoupled from the US enough to grow despite significant recession in the US? Using VAR models, this paper addresses these questions for Nigeria in the context of the global crisis. The results seem to debunk the “decoupling theory” and suggest there are still significant spillovers from Nigeria’s main trading partners, including the US, with trade and commodity price linkages being the dominant transmission channels. Given the sharp fall in both trade financing and commodity prices in aftermath of the crisis, these results provide some explanation to the realization of adverse second-round effects in Nigeria.
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.cfm?sk=23328.0
Press Release: Statement at the Conclusion of the 2009 Article IV IMF Staff Mission to Nigeria
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2009/pr09274.htm
Transcript of a conference call with civil society organizations (CSOs) on the IMF LIC Facilities Review
http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2009/tr051509.htm
Transcript of a Press Conference on the Spring 2009 Global Financial Stability Report
http://www.imf.org/external/np/tr/2009/tr042109.htm
All information from http://www.imf.org
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