Yemisi Shyllon: Ruing our cultural malady -By Tunde Fagbenle

“…Through the ages, the African appears to have evolved no organised religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural…He lacks the power of organisation, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realise its responsibility…”

The above quote excerpt, dated 1926, has been attributed to Lord Frederic Lugard, Nigeria’s first colonial Governor-General. But we are reminded of it by Omooba Yemisi Shyllon, arguably Africa’s foremost art collector, during a lecture he delivered at the Trenchard Hall of the University of Ibadan on 28th of October as part of 40th anniversary events of the Faculty of Technology of the university from where he graduated in engineering in 1977.

We can anger all we want at the horrific depiction of the Nigerian (African) by Lugard, the man is long dead now; but history and our existential narrative continue to bear him out—sadly. And Prince Shyllon, whose lecture title was, ‘Culture As A Panacea For National Development,’ was justifiably miffed that such denigration of us by the Lugards, the Bothas, and others, has not woken in us, in successive governments, the imperative of embracing our culture and recognising it as the fulcrum for any national development and respectability.

To be sure, Yemisi Shyllon wouldn’t be the first personality (artiste or intellectual) to decry the vacuity of our lapping foreign culture whilst throwing ours to the dustbin of history. Notably, the inimitable Afrobeat icon, Fela, had decades ago — reasoning that language, name, religion, amongst other things were signifiers of such foreign cultural domination — demonstrated his angst by excising the foreign ‘Ransome’ from his compound surname (Ransome-Kuti), replacing it with an adopted Anikulapo.

This column has equally spent some editions lamenting the grievous anomaly in the rejection of our own culture on the altar of foreign gods, if the pun is excused. It had explored the correlation between development of a people or country and their lingua franca; finding to its dismay that not one country in the world has technologically developed having a foreign language as its lingua franca! And, else times, this column has attempted to arouse our minds to the essence of ‘indigenous’ religion as a critical cultural agent of human development and dignity.

Shyllon was elaborate in his exploration of the issues involved, drawing examples and parallels from history and unto contemporary times. Eloquently demonstrated in Yemisi’s lecture is the oddity of Africa (Nigeria) latching on to ‘colonialism’ as excuse for where we find ourselves. Buttressing the fact that the fault is in ourselves and not in our stars Shyllon gave the examples of India and Japan, countries that have had far longer years under colonialism but that have stood their cultural (language and religion) grounds.

Says Shyllon, “India was colonised by the British Empire in the year 1600 and did not attain independence until 1947. Thus, the British ruled India for a total of 347 years (as compared to Nigeria for only 99). Yet the culture of the Indians, entrenched in Hinduism, remains intact, generally unpolluted and highly venerated, till date. As of date, 80 per cent of Indians still believe in and practise their Hindu culture and religion with only 18 per cent being Muslims and two per cent being Christians.”

Furthermore, “…The Japanese Shoguns clearly (realising) the danger of Japanese conversion to Christianity…(the Shoguns) in the late 16th century, began their expulsion of Portuguese and Spanish missionaries on the grounds that they were forcing Japanese people to become Christians, through the missionaries teaching their disciples to wreck Japanese temples, take and trade in slaves, etc.

“Indeed by 1856…the persecution and suppression of Japanese Christians began…Hence as of today, Japan is made up of about 129 million people, majority of whom remain Shintoists because they did not allow western missionaries to denigrate their Buddhist and Shintoist culture.”

Omooba Yemisi then brought us “back home” and laments that “our society that was ruled by the British for only 99 years is increasingly influenced by Western, Christian and Muslim cultures.” Why were (are) we so spineless and malleable? One would ask.

“This observation is very painfully apparent, on visits to most of our churches adorned with stained glass paintings and sculptures of representative images of angels, produced and displayed to promote the Christian religion to their black African congregations. All the holy elements, objects, people and angels in such churches are painted as Caucasians; there are no representative artworks of black angels produced for their black African congregations. One then wonders if it ever occurs to the black Nigerian worshippers in these churches, whether they are not deluding themselves in hoping to go to heaven through Christianity where no black angels is portrayed to reside by their church missionaries.

“All through history, the Caucasian race have consistently programmed us as a people, to accept their race as superior, and for us to be psychologically of low self-esteem, through religious manipulations, mis-education and propaganda of missionaries, with a view to exploiting and enslaving us.”

Let it be said that the lecture was not wholly a tirade on any religion – religion being just one of many other aspects of culture. But what hurts an art connoisseur like Yemisi Shyllon is how in the guise of bringing in their foreign religion, a people’s whole life support system and cultural values were deprecated and destroyed by erroneously defining their art forms only within religion praxis.

Shyllon lamented how the possession or production of cultural and art images brought persecution and grief to our people in the past. An example was Agu Dulu Chukwuegu. Though a devout Roman Catholic, “Chukwuegu…was a well-known wood carver in his village, Ahiara Mbaise, in the present Imo State of Nigeria. Because of his creativity in producing art and cultural objects, he was appointed a temporary junior teacher in Umuahia Catholic School…As a teacher he was also carving to make more money.

“Though he was not carving for any cult but for decorative and cultural festivals, some of his fellow teachers, church members and particularly his village people in Ahiara, were shocked at the type of images he was carving. Chukwuegu was criticised for producing idols, and his art works were openly abused and rejected by the entire catholic populace.”

But, luckily, in Chukwuegu’s case, the parish priest, Rev. Father Bronny, saw his works differently for its art merit and embraced and encouraged him. Only then did his Ahiara people, remorsefully, begin to promote his art, and even went further to honour him as the “Dulu”, the Wizard of art, The Great Art Talent of Mbaise!

Shyllon tells us that culture “manifestations can be easily found in words, writing techniques, gestures, arts, objects and heroes – past, present, real or fictitious. Culture is a prized characteristic of any society or any group of people and may be practised by way of rituals that could be considered socially essential. Culture manifests in the manner of greetings, ways by which respect is paid to others and in religious and social ceremonies.”

Falling back on the core of his lecture, “National Development,” Shyllon emphasises cultural tourism as a veritable avenue for national development. He asserts: “Tourists are those individuals, who leave the comfort of their societies, abodes and cultures for others, in order to experience for pleasure, leisure or other beneficial activities those cultural attributes that are not available to them in their normal societal settings…This implies that when a society is ordered, well structured and packages its culture appropriately it is bound to attract people towards experiencing its appealing uniqueness.”

As of 2013, says Shyllon, France annually attracted 85 million tourists, compared to its population of 65 million, i.e. 30 per cent tourists more than its population. Spain attracted about 29 per cent tourists more than its population; UAE with only 9m people attracted over 10m tourists; etc.

“What do these nations have that attract people to them? They have cultivated cultural edifices and have developed events around their God-given cultural heritage sites. They have also created man-made museums, art edifices and cultural monuments,” posits Shyllon.

In this regard, I daresay, the effort of Governor Aregbesola for the cultural emancipation of his State of Osun is noteworthy. Unfortunately, his vision to transform Osun into the African Mecca or Jerusalem – the foremost destination for cultural tourism is beclouded by the state’s present economic travails.

Extrapolating this unto Nigeria’s population, says Shyllon, “if only our country could take tourism seriously…then our country would be attracting about 75m tourists per annum,” and at the average per tourist spend of USD 1,250, “Nigeria, our country, can generate about USD 94 billion from tourism per annum,” concludes Omooba Shyllon whose Art Foundation (OYASAF) has over the years been attracting and sponsoring intellectual researches into Nigeria’s creative talents and productions by scholars from different parts of the world.

Those who have ears let them hear!