A major constraint to the study of the visual arts as a school subject in Nigeria today is the dearth of art literature such as learned journals and textbooks. Several factors have also contributed to this problem.
The earliest literature on aspects of Nigerian art could be found in the books and other types of literature which were produced by early Western travellers, merchants, Muslim and Christian missionaries, and colonial administrators who had come to the area that is referred to today as Nigeria about a millennium ago.
Other examples of published works with references made to Nigerian arts are those of Captain Hugh Clapperton (1829) in which he commented on the elaborate ornaments which characterised the wooden sculptures that he saw in Oyo in 1926. Leo Frobenius (1913), a German ethnologist discussed Ife bronze sculptures in his account of the African cultures he saw during his trip to the continent at the beginning of the twentieth century A.D.
One of the earliest examples of works with references on aspects of Nigerian art was that of W.H Clarke, a Baptist missionary. It was an account of his exploration of Yorubaland in the late nineteenth century, which remained unpublished until 1972. Samuel Johnson’s (1921) book on the history of the Yoruba has a section devoted to the Yoruba people’s visual art. The work of Johnson, a black Anglican missionary like Ajayi Crowther, was the result of his attempt to document the oral history of the Yoruba which he feared may become lost as a result of the protracted Yoruba civil wars of the nineteenth century.
It is noteworthy that the views of aspects of Nigerian art documented in the published dairies of early travellers to country were not intended to be used as instructional materials in Nigerian educational institutions as these did not exist at that time, and were established some centuries or decades later. The works containing materials on Nigerian art like those of other African people were published at that time for Western readers many of whose curiosity about Africa’s prospects for trade and other imperialistic potentialities engendered the exploration of the country.
The Introduction of Books into Nigerian Schools
Books were not used in the informal education system which was practised in pre-colonial Nigeria. This was because book writing and reading were alien to the traditional Nigerians whose cultural history was oral before Muslims scholars and clergy men introduced the Quran and other Islamic books into northern Nigeria. This was done in their bid to facilitate their Islamisation of the indigenous people of Nigeria in the middle eleventh century A.D (Fayose and Madu 2001:16). Similarly, Christian missionaries introduced books such as the Bible, hymnals, catechisms and the Queen’s primer in their bid to ensure Christian evangelism and “civilize” Nigerians whom they first encountered in the southern part of the country. For instance, this phenomenon in Nigeria took place in the coastal towns of Warri, and the ancient Benin kingdom that was located at the mouth of River Gwatto in the fourteenth century A.D. (Kenny 1083:45-60).
However, art books did not appear in the Nigerian art education scene until sometime in the early twentieth century A.D. after the formal education system had been introduced into the country some eight decades back. Early art teachers in Nigeria such as Aina Onabolu and Kenneth Murray, both employed by the colonial government in 1922 and 1927, respectively used imported art textbooks to facilitate their teaching of visual arts in Nigerian schools, which were few and located in major towns like Lagos, Ibadan and Umuahia at the time. The source of the art books, like the ones which were used to teach other subjects such as English language, history, and mathematics, was mainly Europe where the teachers studied. Aside these points is the fact that publishers such as Oxford and Cambridge Universities presses which produced books abound in countries like Britain. It was not until much later in the twentieth century when printing and publishing began to thrive following the steady growth of journalism and commercial printing that the production and publication of textbooks began in Nigeria. Fayose and Madu (2001: 19-20) inform that the process was facilitated by foreign publishers, who opened branches of their companies in the country in the 1930s and 1940s.
It is, however, doubtful if the writing of art textbooks was included in the agenda of the text book committee which was set up in 1927 by the colonial government in Nigeria because the study of art which began only some five years earlier in 1923 was at its infant stage the text book committee which was charged with task of “seeking for manuscripts and authors that could suit Nigerians” was set up as the result of the insistence of the participants at the Imperial Education Conference in London in 1923 that school text books should be made relevant to the people.
The early text books which were imported from abroad and used in Nigerian schools were written by foreign art scholars. Art pupils in Nigerian schools in the era before and immediately after independence in 1960 will remember reading books like Art: Creative and Mental Growth (Lowenfeld 1947), Graphic Design (Lewies and Brinkley 1954) Art for African Schools (Stanfield 1956), A Concise History of Art (Bazin 1958), Art Teaching for Primary Schools in Africa (Mackenzie 1966), Aesthetics and Art Theory: an Historical Introduction (Osborne 1970), Art and Illusion (Gombrich 1971) and The Story of Art (Gombrich, 1972). General Art text books which were imported into Nigeria during the era in question include the ones written by Fleming (1955) Hoffman (1965) and Feldman (1967). These focused on Western art which they treated from the prehistoric art period, through the ancient Mediterranean and classical European traditions. They ended at the evolution of modern art era with slight mention made of the role of African arts in its dispensation.
Earlier in the 1920’s, a few expatriate artists of whom Kenneth Murray was typical, commenced writing articles on aspects of Nigerian arts. These they published in the Nigeria Magazine, a government journal on Nigeria, her people and culture that was launched in 1927 (Awe 1989: 28). The establishment of the Department of Antiquities with the Antiquities Act. No. 17 of 1953, which mandate was to discover, preserve and research into the diverse traditional cultures of the people of Nigeria provided more impetus for the publications of materials on Nigerian visual arts (Awe 1989: 28).
The results of the ethnographic and archaeological works of the likes of William and Bernard Fagg, Frank Willett, Sylvia Leith-Rosa and Thurston Shaw were not only featured in volumes of the journal but inadvertently became the subjects of books on Nigerian arts. Examples of these are Bernard Fagg’s (1977) Nok Terracottas, Willett’s (1967) Ife in the History of West African Sculpture, Leith-Rosa’s (1970) Nigerian Pottery and Shaw’s (1977) Unearthing Igbo Ukwu.
Experimental workshops on Yoruba art which were organized in Oye-Ekiti, Ijebu-Igbo and Ondo in the late 1940s with a view to using their products in Catholic churches as liturgical objects propelled Rev. Father Kelvin Carroll (1947) to write the book, Yoruba Religious Carving, Pagan and Christian Sculpture in Nigeria and Dahomey.
The seed of interest in traditional and contemporary Nigerian arts scholarship as well as that of a general interest in African arts, which had been sown in the early twentieth century due partly to the international interest in traditional African art and mainly to the fervour to search for and create a cultural identity for new independent African nations, grew immediately after independence in 1960. Ulli Beier (1960), Marshall Mount (1973) and Frank Willett (1971) blazed the trial with their books in this respect. Osa Egonwa (1994) and Kojo Fosu (1986) followed suit much later.
In writing about adult education in Nigeria, Onyenemezu (2012) acknowledged that the country is facing challenges in the 21st century. Recently youth and young adults have been restive in the Niger Delta region resulting in violence and youth militancy in militias. More recently, Boko Haram is wreaking havoc through bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations. Onyenemezu argued that examining adult education could help to alleviate the instability and increase political and economic development. Oddly, when Zuofa and Olori, (2015) recently researched adult learning methods in Nigeria, they did not include storytelling. Evidence suggests that it would be an effective method of adult education in Nigeria. Whether in formal, informal, or non-formal learning, telling the stories of historical facts and cultures are significant aspects of connecting adult learners with their cultural heritage.
Although Achebe first wrote of the impact of colonizers on Igbo clans in 1959, as recently as 2014, Nduka expressed concern that the Igbo culture will be lost. He lamented that when fathers do not know the history and stories of their own culture, it is a tragedy that they cannot answer the questions of their children about festivals, the indigenous calendar, the age-grade or age-group system, chieftancy within the community, or meanings of proverbs. Storytelling is useful for members of the African diaspora not just to remember their own history, but to adapt to their new homes. Tuwe (2016) studied African communities based in New Zealand and argued that the oral tradition of storytelling was useful when dealing with work-related challenges. 96 Decolonization involves challenging Western epistemologies and embracing an indigenous paradigm and traditional knowledge.
Recognizing the power and influence of native stories can assist decolonization and reverse the perception of colonizers being knowers and indigenous people as being ignorant. First, the legacy of the helping Western colonializing Other must be resisted…As agents of colonial power, Western scientists discovered, extracted, appropriated, commodified, and distributed knowledge about the indigenous other. (Denzin, Lincoln & Smith, 2008, p. 5) In order to undo western dominance and unravel colonialism, it is necessary to create knowledge based on African philosophy which includes “community-centred [sic] ways of knowing, the story-telling framework, [and] language as a bank of knowledge” (Chilisa & Preece, 2005, p. 49). Storytelling satisfies all three of those aspects. Since storytelling was a social practice and a participatory experience, it is community centered. The storytelling framework has been used for millennia in Nigeria in the oral tradition, which continues even with the evolution of written stories.
Finally, language is a bank of knowledge since proverbs and cultural history are included in both the oral and written tradition. Although European colonizers renamed lands, bodies of water, and other African assets by inflicting names related by the colonizers and missionaries, in stories, Nigerians could reclaim their indigenous knowledge and language by reclaiming the original names. In addition, storytelling as a motivational tool has the potential to expose learners to the path of success using inspirational stories that can foster strong connection. Denning (2011) noted that much of what we know is composed of stories, and many of them describe how circumstances and situations in the past have been successfully handled. In other words, through the application of stories, adult learners can gain knowledge that will be useful for undertaking life’s arduous tasks. For example, hearing stories about conflict resolution, one could learn how to resolve a conflict. A personal life story could culminate in learning transformation and new understanding (Pfahl & Wiessner, 2007).
When people organize their experiences into stories, the resulting narrative “may be an ideal process in that it characterizes movement of development toward some future end” (Weissner & Pfahl, 2007, p. 28). Dillard (2008) has capitalized on this notion by adopting the idea of using the term African ascendant rather than descendant to describe “the upward and forward moving nature of African people through the diaspora as well as on the African continent herself” (p. 291). This is itself a decolonizing perspective. When people examine their own stories, they can examine them in relation to larger cultural contexts (Rossiter, 2002, p. 4). Adults have the potential to make changes and rewrite their lives stories (Pfahl & Wiessner, 2007), reducing their colonized world views. Storytelling allows individuals to rewrite themselves, but it can also have a larger impact: indigenous peoples who are combatting the effects of colonialism can unite a group or community and rewrite communal memory (Weissner & Pfahl, 2007).