Months ago, the city by the lagoon was awash with festivities lined up for a memorable golden jubilee. It spanned several weeks, thus allowing Nigeria’s commercial capital a much needed makeover. Muralists left their handprints on bridges and clover leafs. Playwrights staged productions commemorating the state’s creation. Boat regattas displayed their skill on the city’s numerous waterways. Traditional rulers were not left out as they played up the city’s rich culture, and all of that coordinated and managed efficiently by the state government. To cap it all, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode’s government left a lasting legacy by erecting statues of prominent Lagosians on famous streets, avenues, roads and parks.
One of the structures is a gigantic statue of iconic musician and Afro beat singer, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. It stands on a pedestal on Obafemi Awolowo Way in the heart of Ikeja. Hands raised in Black Power salute made popular by African American civil rights activists such as Stokely CarMichael aka Kwame Toure, Fela faces the road leading to Alausa from Allen Avenue. A monumental project by any standard, it however lacks the most essential feature of such sculptural works. This is one Fela without a face.
How on earth, Cobra Review wonders, did an artist allow the sculpture of a legendary Lagosian and iconic figure like Fela be mounted sans face? How can young people, those who never knew Fela at all, identify him?
Cobra Review sought the view of a famous artist and art critic, Chuka Nabuife, erstwhile Secretary General of the Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA). He is the MD/ Editor-in-Chief of Anambra Newspapers and Printing Corporation. “It is not improper,” he began by telling Cobra Review.
“Public monuments, even when they are statues or statues, must not be sculpted in realism. They can be surrealistic, stylised or abstract. What matters most is that the sculpture communicates its message effectively to anybody who beholds it.”
As for the question of identification, the SNA member mused thus: “Through the ability of the sculpture to capture, succinctly, the peculiar characteristics – posture, fashion, setting and publicly acknowledged mannerism of the sculpture’s subject. In this case it means making the world behold the art piece and instantly remember the late music star, Fela Anikulapo Kuti even without seeing a face in the sculpture.”
Are there precedents of such scuptural works he is aware of? Yes, he said. “I remember the surrealistic stony public sculpture, ‘Golgotha’ at the precincts of Michael Okpara Sqaure, Independence Layout, Enugu, The surreal sculptures of the United States of America sculptor, Richard Hunt which are mostly huge public monuments.
“But I must note that given that it is common to find very realistic portraiture as statues in most parts of Nigeria, it is very apt for members of the public to expect a head on a Fela monument. However, the most important question to pose is: How did anyone know that the piece is of Fela Kuti? If the sculptor was able to make the viewer see the work and think about the legendary afrobeat music icon, then he produced a very successful work of art that is even of a very high aesthetic quality.”
