Mathew Oyedele
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| Mural, painting and installation section of the exhibition space. Image credit: Tobi Animashaun. |
| Despite the commercialisation and commodification of art in Lagos, the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos, continues to stage critical, experiential and experimental art to contribute to the development and professionalisation of artistic production in Nigeria. Founded by the late independent curator, Bisi Silva in 2007, the Centre prides itself in its library which houses huge collection of books, journals, manuscripts, catalogues and monographs for research as well as collaboration with African and international artists, curators and organisations. |
Tobi is a self-taught artist with a degree in English Language from the University of Lagos. He lives by the conviction that the creative temperament is sustained by a consistent nurturing which he exercise through the mediums of drawing, painting, mixed media, sculpture and recently, sound art.
The theme of the exhibition reminds this writer of his growing up in a christian family. His grandmother would paste papers with bible verses at the entrance of the house and rooms, and would replace the old ones with new ones every new year, as ordered by the church. The heading on these papers would read, 'Almanac' for the English version and 'Akomona' for the Yoruba version. His grandmother made him believe that the bible verses on the papers would be their watchword every year and protect them from evil. But Tobi's exhibition has made him realise that 'Akomona' is not a religious charm that protects; but a guide, a direction, a navigation and an embodiment of history.
The starting point of the exhibition is the mural and installation section, which display maps and street names of Victoria Island and Ikoyi areas. Street names around Ikoyi, from their colonial names to their rechristened indigenous names hang overhead and allow the spectator to look and move in all directions for a wholesome experience of the installation. The overhead hangings invites the audience into a historical tour of Ikoyi and also present street names as symbols and emblems of identity, event and history.
Ikoyi, located in Eti-Osa Local Government Area, is one of the most affluent neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria. It was developed as a residential dwelling for British professionals and had streets named after the colonial expatriates. But as time passes by, the realization of the need to name and identify those streets with names of Nigerians who have contributed to the development of the nation begins to settle. This made the then military government in Lagos to rename some streets in Ikoyi after indigenous people of Lagos. The recent wave of the Black Lives Matter protests around the world also sparked a debate in the Lagos State House of Assembly where the lawmakers voted against Lagos streets bearing names of colonial masters. This, however, does not mean the old names should be discarded and erased, but should be improved upon as an episode of our history.
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| Sound installation section of the exhibition. Image credit: Tobi Animashaun |
One of the 23 street names that have been rechristened from colonial names to indigenous names and highlighted in this exhibition is Queens Drive. After a long time of retaining its colonial name, Queens Drive was renamed after Lady Oyinkansola Abayomi who was the founding teacher of Queens College, Lagos and the first woman from Lagos to drive a car. According to Omiko Awa, "Oyinkan was an advocate of women rights, equal access and participation, and the girl child education. She founded the British West African Educated Girls’ Club, which later became the Ladies’ Progressive Club. She used the organisation to reach out to women in different social status and to raise fund for the establishment of Queen’s College, a girls’ only secondary school in Yaba, Lagos in 1927. Aside being the first Nigerian to teach in the school, she also ran a boarding house at home for boys and girls. Oyinkan engaged in the development of the Girls’ Guide movement, organising market women unions and the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). Following her husband’s footsteps in the Lagos Youth Movement (LYM) and later the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM), Oyinkan urged Nigerians to participate in the running of their local affairs and to agitate for independence. Recognising her contributions, different communities honoured her with traditional chieftaincies, including Moroye of Lagos and Iya Abiye of Egbaland, among others. The Federal government honoured her with the Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (OFR), while the British government conferred on her the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). The Rosicrucian Order also recognised her with the Humanitarian Award. Lagos State government renamed Queen’s Drive on Ikoyi Waterfront to Oyinkan Abayomi Drive to honour her
Another rechristened street name from the exhibition is Alfred Rewane Road which bore Kingsway road in the colonial time. The decision to rename the road after the late Itsekiri-born businessman was made to honour his contribution to the country's polity. Rewane was a pro-democracy activist who supported the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) and other groups in the struggle for the actualisation of the June 12 mandate. "At a personal level, he campaigned against official graft in high places, lack of accountability and gross violation of human rights which further pitted him against the military. He was brutally killed in curious circumstances by unknown assassins in Lagos.".
Lateef Jakande Avenue which was renamed from Bell Avenue is another street name in the exhibition that cannot be overlooked. In his book, Lago de Curamo: Histories and Personalities behind the Ancient and Modern Streets of Lagos, Kanmi Olatoye writes, "The history of Lagos is on its streets." Corroborating this view, Kaye Whiteman in his book, Lagos: A Cultural and Literary History writes, "Another way of exploring the city is to take some of its individual streets, roads or byways and look for their individual personalities." Lateef Jakande Avenue is one of the roads in Lagos whose name carries so much history and impact and would make one look for their individual personalities. Jakande, the first elected governor of Lagos state and former minister of works, was one of the five governors of the Unity Party of Nigeria who were elected as Nigeria transitioned from a 13-year military rule. "Jakande’s government built 11,729 classrooms between March and August 1980 and fixed the number of pupils per class at 40. By 1983, the government had built more than 22,000 classrooms. He also established a teacher training college and a college of education, and concluded the arrangement for the establishment of the Lagos State University in Ojo. One other area of his administration’s investment that also endeared Jakande to the people was his mass housing scheme which gave birth to many low-cost estates in many neighbourhoods."
Other street names in the exhibition include: Moorehouse/Bankole Oki, Club Road/Elegushi Road, 2nd Avenue/Oba Adeyinka Oyekan, Bedwell Road/Adekunle Lawal Road, Lees Road/Onitana Road, Rumsey Road/Aromire Road, Fowler Road/Oluwa Road, Brown Road/Olumegbon Road, Webb Road/Olawale Dawodu Road, MacDonald Road/Oniru Road, Probyn Road/Onisowo Road, Cooper Road/Femi Okunnu Road, Forsberry Road/Oloto Road, Shaw Road/Onile Gbale Road, Ruxton Road/Ojomu Road, Turnbull Road/Onikoyi Road, Bank Road/Murtala Muhammed, First Avenue/Mobolaji Johnson Road. The colonial names are written in white letters on black backgrounds while the indigenous names are written in white letters on red backgrounds.
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| Close-up shot of a street name on display. Image credit: Tobi Animashaun. |
The artist's selection of the street names, and presentation of both former and latter names one above the other is an attempt to advocate for proper documentation, mapping and direction. He confided that: "The 23 street names were selected to show our lack of documentation, and disconnection between yesterday and today. I am not frowning at the ideology of change but if you want to change one street name to another, let them be placed like I have done in this exhibition (side by side or one above the other) to aid one's mapping in order to get to our destinations with ease. Life is all about journey, but when you have an inconclusive mapping it will be difficult to get around. On the other side, these street names are pregnant with memories, not just national histories but history of residents, archives of relics, our daily wins and losses, joy, happiness and different forms of emotions. The reason I chose the street names around Ikoyi is because more streets were renamed in this axis than places like Yaba. To add to this, it was more convincing when I had pockets of conversations with some family members who lived and worked in Ikoyi, and they shared the difficulties of getting around due to the inconclusiveness in the mapping/documentation."
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| And they were Kings. Image credit: Tobi Animashaun, |
And they were Kings
Some step away from the map installation takes the spectator before two pixelated portraits, hanging in the east side of the exhibition space. One of these has the image of a military man while the other has the image of a traditional man. In the portraits, road signs are employed as embellishments on the uniform and attire of the portraits, while texts run freely in the backgrounds. Black, grey and white are employed in square shapes to present the portraits as archival images while pale blue and neon green serve as highlights on the faces of the subjects. The two portraits are titled, "And they were Kings." In these portraits, the artist makes an attempt at giving flesh to street names, in lieu of seeing them as static metal sheets that are screwed on poles and houses. The artist reveal that the subjects in the painting are Oba Adeyinka Oyekan and Adekunle Lawal. They were selected because they ruled and governed Lagos at a point and they are painted in pixelated format to delineate inconclusive and blurry documentation. Adekunle Lawal, born on February 8, 1934, was the military governor of Lagos state between 1975 and 1977. He was later transferred to become the governor of Imo state between 1977 and 1978. Adeyinka Oyekan on the other hand, succeeded Adeniji Adele as the Oba of Lagos in 1965 and ruled till 2003.
Of Journey, Movement and Direction
The southern side of the exhibition space has a sound installation that rented the air with noise, sound, hoot and movement of vehicles in traffic from the streets of Lagos which were recorded by the artist in different areas of Lagos. The artist revealed that, "the recorded traffic symbolise journey, mapping, movement and direction from point one point to another. In this installation, our state of movements are depicted in three different ways: ordinary traffic, confusion state and reverse sound. The ordinary traffic is a recording of a traffic that has passersby walking on their foot as public buses, private vehicles and motorcycles move in opposite directions. Confusion state sound art is a recording that marries or merges three different traffic recordings from three different areas in Lagos, showcasing our state of confusion, having clashes of noises, interruptions of sounds and some overlapped conversations which the mind tries to decipher while listening to it. This shows how the information we have access to put us in a state of confusion; we think we are moving forward but we are in a confused state. Reverse sound art captures a deliberate playback of a traffic recording which depicts us having the ideology of moving forward or progressing but we are actually moving backwards. These three sound art installations show essence of movement, journey and the after effects, as well as the state of mind of a society that lacks sense of direction, sense of history and sense of documentation."
Conclusion
Streets derive their names from people, things, places and events, which may be economically, socially and politically motivated. But what do we do with streets that are named after problematic personalities with a track record of genocide, death, abuse of human rights and crimes against humanity? Should we tear down such names and erase them from the consciousness of our history? Or we should just rename them under shady circumstances with no clear explanation or documentation? The last question here is what happened when Broad Street, Lagos was renamed after Yakubu Gowon in 1970, in honour of his pseudo-heroic deeds during the civil war. The street name was however changed back to Broad Street after Gowon lost favour in the late 1970s in lieu of his crime against humanity.
It is also noteworthy that old street names sometime have a way of sticking longer than new street names. Bank Road, where Murtala Muhammed was assassinated, was renamed after him but people would rather refer to it as Bank Road, despite the historical significance of the new name.
With this exhibition, the artist has triggered the audience to dig deep into their personal, family and national histories and look out for important event that shapes their identity and presentation in today's world.
He is also advocating against destruction and erasure of street names that upset and angers the populace. Such streets should be rechristened and modified by placing the old and new names close to each other for easy mapping and direction.
References
About Adekunle Lawal: Nigerian Politician (1934-1980), Biography, Facts, Career, Wiki, Life. www.peoplepill-com.cdn.ampproject.org
Kaye Whiteman: Lagos: A Cultural and Literary History, www.books.google.com
Mojeed Alabi (2021), Obituary: Jakande: Exit of Baba Kekere, man who transformed Lagos, www.premiumtimesng.com
Omiko Awa (2020), Lady Oyinkansola Abayomi: An Amazon, trailblazer, www.guardian-ng.cdn.ampproject.org
Webmaster (2015), The Changing Face of Alfred Rewane Road Ikoyi, www.dailytrust.com
Outstanding review
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