Artsdiscourse

  Chris Afuba remodelling 'Otiigba'. Source: Facebook. Chinezim Moghalu Chris Afuba is a post-war Nigerian artist from Nimo in Anambra state, who was born on June 3, 1947, in Ogidi, Anambra state. His father moved from the Onitsha city with him to Nimo when he was very young. Afuba indicates: "as far back as I could remember, when I was five, my mother's kitchen was being built with local materials, and being as we were preparing meshed mud, which they used in those days in building walls, instinctively as a child I went to where she was doing it, pounding it with her legs and making it malleable, and I was attracted to the material because it was soft and malleable. I scooped a handful of lump and began to model. The first figure l modelled was a police man- just a bust; small in size. I was excited and I had to admire it. In no distant time, because red-earth mud is not too plastic, it cracked and broke. I saw it breaking off and, instinctively I got a stick, remov...

 Mathew Oyedele Family and friends of Late Chief Bode Akindele pose for a picture before the statue . Photo credit: Djakou Kassi Nathalie. After a series of daily workings spanning a couple of months, the statue of Chief Bode Akindele was completed and mounted in May 2021 by a workforce that consists of Ato Arinze as the sculptor, Henry Unuigboje and David Kpanaki as studio associates, Djakou Kassi Nathalie as the photographer and Oladapo Oyekunle as the logistics supervisor. Fibre glass, mixed with marble and stone dust, and acrylic bronze as the surface finish was used to actualise the project which was commissioned by the Akindele family in Ibadan to celebrate and immortalise the legacy of Chief Bode Akindele, as a proud father, grandfather, great- grandfather, a successful business man, an industrialist and a philanthropist. Chief Bode Akindele was a man of many enterprises and international connections. He was the Chairman of Modandola Group, a holding company which covers...