Follow Us on Google
This is the second part of this article series. In this section, the story moves from the deep historical roots of Nigerian art to the people and cultural moments that helped carry that heritage into modern times. I reflect on friendships and encounters with individuals whose work shaped Nigeria’s cultural life, including Segun Olusola and Wole Soyinka. I also revisit the atmosphere and significance of Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, a historic gathering that brought artists and thinkers from across the Black world to Nigeria. Through these memories, this part of the article reflects on how art lived not only in galleries and museums but also in conversation, performance, and public space, and why the legacy of artists like Ben Enwonwu continues to matter today.
Segun Olusola represented yet another dimension of art – the power of media and performance. Though many know him primarily as a diplomat and public servant, he was also a pioneer of Nigerian television drama. In the early days of broadcasting, he created and produced cultural programming that brought Nigerian stories, values, and traditions into people’s homes. At a time when television was still new in Nigeria, Olusola understood its power as a cultural instrument. His work helped nurture local talent and promote indigenous storytelling, ensuring that Nigerian art was not confined to galleries and museums but lived in everyday conversation. He believed that culture was not an ornament of society; it was its heartbeat.
Wole Soyinka, playwright, poet, essayist, and later the first African to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Long before the Nobel recognition in 1986, Soyinka had already established himself as one of the most intellectually formidable voices of his generation. His plays, such as The Lion and the Jewel and Death and the King’s Horseman, drew deeply from Yoruba cosmology and traditional performance while engaging modern political and philosophical questions. Soyinka’s art was never detached from society; it confronted injustice, challenged tyranny, and examined the moral dilemmas of postcolonial Africa. In him, art became both cultural preservation and social critique. Through theatre and literature, he demonstrated that artistic expression could shape national consciousness as powerfully as any political speech.
Through those friendships, my involvement deepened beyond admiration and conversation. I became part of the team that worked on preparations leading into Nigeria’s great cultural showcase – the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, better known as FESTAC ’77, hosted in Lagos in 1977. It was not just an event; it was a declaration. Nigeria, barely seventeen years after independence and emerging from the shadows of civil war, was announcing itself as a cultural capital of the Black world. Delegations arrived from across Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, and Europe. Writers, dancers, sculptors, historians, musicians – they came not merely to perform, but to reconnect with a shared heritage fractured by centuries of displacement and colonial interruption.
Working within the preparatory circles of that festival exposed me to the seriousness with which culture was treated at the time. Committees debated symbolism, authenticity, representation. There was a sense that we were not organizing entertainment; we were curating memory. FESTAC became a moment when Nigeria positioned itself as custodian and convener of Black artistic excellence. It was during that period that my own commitment to cultural preservation took firmer root. I began collecting works that spoke to our history – sculptures, carvings, paintings, artifacts that reflected the layered story of who we are. I did not see myself merely as a collector; I saw myself as a custodian.
During the festival, many of the artists who travelled from countries across the Black world made it a point to visit the home and studio of Ben Enwonwu. His residence became something of an informal cultural embassy. There, conversations flowed about identity, decolonization, aesthetics, spirituality, and the responsibilities of the African artist in a postcolonial age. Enwonwu was already an international figure by then, but during FESTAC he became something more – a host to a global family rediscovering itself.
Other News
Among the many works that symbolized his presence in Nigeria’s public space, one stood prominently in Lagos: The Drummer. Installed at the iconic 35-storey NET Building, then the tallest building in the entire country and a bold statement of Nigeria’s economic ambition – the sculpture stood as a visual anthem. The NET Building itself was a symbol of modernity, of a young nation rising confidently into the skyline. And at its base stood Enwonwu’s drummer, poised in rhythmic motion, hands frozen in the act of summoning sound. The drummer, in African cosmology, is never just a musician. He is communicator, historian, and herald. In many traditional societies, the drum speaks. It announces births, warns of danger, calls communities to ceremony, preserves genealogies, and carries coded messages across distance. By placing a drummer at the foot of the tallest building in Nigeria, Enwonwu achieved something profoundly symbolic. He fused tradition with modernity. The upward thrust of the skyscraper represented economic progress; the drummer at its base reminded us that no ascent is meaningful if detached from cultural roots.
For decades, that sculpture stood quietly in Lagos, witnessing political transitions, economic booms and downturns, and the relentless expansion of the city around it. It became part of the urban memory something many passed daily, sometimes without fully grasping its significance. And then, recently, it was stolen.
The theft of The Drummer was not merely the loss of a sculpture; it was the removal of a cultural marker. It raised uncomfortable questions about how we safeguard public art and how seriously we take our heritage. How does a monumental work by one of Africa’s most celebrated modern artists disappear from the heart of a bustling commercial district? What does it say about our systems of preservation, our security priorities, and our collective attentiveness?
There is something deeply ironic about it. The very sculpture that symbolized communication and continuity – the drummer calling a people to awareness – was taken almost silently. It is as though the drumbeat was muted. Yet perhaps the deeper issue is not the act of theft itself, but what it reveals. Public art, especially art rooted in national identity, demands protection not only by law but by collective consciousness. When a society internalizes the value of its cultural symbols, vigilance becomes instinctive. The disappearance of The Drummer forces us to examine whether we have allowed familiarity to dull our appreciation.
In many cities around the world, sculptures by national masters are guarded, insured, catalogued, and monitored with precision. They are treated as irreplaceable assets. Enwonwu’s works fall into that category. His paintings command international attention at auctions; his sculptures are studied in universities; his legacy is discussed in global art history. Yet at home, one of his most symbolic public works could be removed without immediate national alarm.
Looking back at those FESTAC days, I remember the optimism that culture could anchor national development. We believed that art would not sit at the margins but stand at the centre of Nigeria’s identity. Enwonwu embodied that vision. He believed that modern skyscrapers and ancient drums could coexist, that international acclaim and indigenous pride were not opposites but complements. The NET Building may still rise above Lagos, but the absence of The Drummer leaves a visible gap. It is a reminder that heritage, like freedom, requires constant stewardship. Art is not self- preserving. It depends on institutions, policies, collectors, historians, and ordinary citizens who understand its worth.
Though I am not an artist in the formal sense; I do not sculpt, I do not paint, I do not carve my relationship with art and with artists slowly shaped the direction of my own life in ways I could not have predicted in those early years. What began as curiosity in a London museum, what deepened through friendships with men like Ben Enwonwu and others, what matured during the preparations for FESTAC ’77, eventually crystallized into a personal conviction: Nigeria needed spaces where its artistic heritage could live permanently, not temporarily. It needed institutions that were not waiting for government initiative alone, but were driven by private commitment. That conviction led to the establishment of what is now known as “Didi Museum” the first private museum in Nigeria. The museum was formally founded in May 1983 and was first located on Akin Adesola Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. It began modestly, but with a clear vision to create a space where Nigeria’s artistic heritage could be preserved, studied, and appreciated within its own cultural environment.
• To be continued…
