Razak Akanbi is a professional cloth weaver, specialising in making assortments of aso-oke. Located within the premises of the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, Akanbi moved over to Lagos from his home town Ilorin, many years ago to further prosper his craft. Edozie Udeze who spent hours with him at work, gives detailed account of what he witnessed and what the business means to the Akanbi family
Razak Akanbi is from the popular Akanbi weaving family of Ilorin. Weaving has been a family business and craft from time immemorial. Now located within the premises of the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) at the National Theatre, Lagos, he says it is a better place to feel the presence of arts. At the moment, the NCAC management has evacuated the previous occupants of the shops and now reallocated it to the Akanbi family.
Now seated there in front of the crafts offices of NCAC, Akanbi bestrode his long weaving machines, peddling away and knotting the aso-oke cloths together. “Yes, we are here now because NCAC says this premises is basically for arts”, he opens up in an interview. “The people here before were selling food and beer and all sorts of drinks. They have all been shifted to abegi”.
“Aso-oke weaving is what we do in my family mainly”, Akanbi still says while deeply glued to the endless movements of his legs and hands on the roving machine. The long threads run down a few metres in front of him while his legs and fingers dance to the tune of movements. As he does so, the aso-oke cloth gradually comes to final formation. The threads are in different colours giving the product irresistible aesthetic appeal.
He enthuses “aso-oke is popular in Yoruba land. It is an inheritance. In fact, we learnt it from childhood. It is what we normally do in our town, Ilorin, Kwara State. My father did it. My grandfather did it. Now it is my turn to continue to do it. It is not only done in Ilorin. It is also done at Iseyin in Oyo State. Abeokuta people engage in it. Even if you go to countries like Ghana, the Gambia, Senegal, Togo and parts of Benin Republic, there are families that traditionally engage in weaving”.
Akanbi confesses that some of his people here abandoned this juicy trade due to some reasons. In his own home, only two of them still ply the weaving business. “In those days, our forefathers were fond of producing the threads for this business. They were able to also source the wools locally. Now, we cannot do that anymore. What we have at the moment come from China. And it is so expensive. This has contributed to so many people abandoning the business”.
He rummages on the time spent to produce one aso-oke material. “If it is a plain one, one can spend one day to produce ten or fifteen pieces. It all depends on the design. When it is complicated, it takes longer time to produce because of the colours involved. It is faster when the colours are one or two or even just three. Each piece here costs between two to three thousand naira”, he confirms with a nod of the head.
Most times, he gets customers who commission him to do the type of designs they require. At other times, he creates the designs on his own, only waiting for those who love them to come along to make their requests, insisting on specifications. Akanbi explains: “Customers normally order these designs. In that case, we do them in commercial quantity. But we have a challenge sometimes. Like this machine now, you can only get it in a few markets in Lagos. At times, we get them at Agege or Idumota markets and they are so expensive. The machine is manual and it is often hard to operate. Government is not even showing interest in formulating ways to produce the weaving machine”.
Lamenting that it is only the Chinese who have been providing the machines, the weaver bemoans “The Oyibo people started from this level we are now, before they advanced. But we should have advanced higher than this if there is cooperation from the necessary quarters in Nigeria. Something more modern needs to be done to make the business easier, faster and more lucrative”.
But why did he abandon his homestead of Ilorin for Lagos? “Ah”, he stammers with a grin on his face. “You see, the market for me, is better here. However, there are some people still in Ilorin and the market over there is booming. All of us can not all be there. Some of us who are more disposed to move out, have chosen to diversify by coming to Lagos. Ilorin does not look big enough to absorb all of us all at the same time. We have been here in Lagos for more than twenty years. The business is faster here; it is bigger. There are plenty party people here in this place. We were not here before. It was NCAC that told us to come over to use this premises”.
So how did he get the contact to move over to NCAC? “Oh”, he exclaims, looking up briefly from the roaming of his fingers, “One of my relations has just been employed by NCAC. He was the one that relayed the information to me the moment they asked the former occupants to quit the premises. They gave us the space. However, I assume that as time goes on, they will develop the place and make it look more pleasant. They will buy the necessary things to ensure this place is more conducive, for crafts and for weaving”.
As a crafts man who is seriously committed to his trade, Akanbi is of the belief that with an improved technology, this can go places. “It is difficult to do but if you do it well, it gives money”, he says with a twinge of fun in his voice. It runs in the family and we really thank God that the money we make from it, helps us to run our family, pay our bills and do one or two things. We had it better than this when the country was better. Still we thank God”.
He has been engaged in this for about thirty years. Thirty years of ups and downs, yet thirty years of trying to maintain an inheritance and ensuring that the trade keeps on moving. “I have done this for over thirty years. All of us cannot run away from weaving. Aso-oke has to live, has to remain in our cultural lives. It is our inheritance. It is our way of life and we have to keep it aglow. Party people have to wear it. People who do aso-ebi have to wear it. People in their individual levels and lifestyles have to wear it… I am happy to be involved in it. But my greatest worry is that the economy is too harsh on us at the moment. It is so difficult”.
Before now, five of his siblings were doing this business. “We are only two now; me and my younger brother. The rest three have called it quits. But do you blame them? He queries with his eyes probing into the reporter’s. “My children are still small. But I feel one or two will show interest in it. If they are interested I will encourage them, hoping that the level of technology of the machine would have been better then. There’s a lot of stress in this manual machine and it may not be good for them”.
He commended the National Theatre environment as being accommodating for the art. “Yes, there is space here; enough elbowroom to weave. There is plenty of breeze coming from different angles to help us relax and engage in the designs more professionally”, he discloses as he goes back to his job. He goes back with more concentration as his eyes focus more attentively on the red and yellow designs he goes on to produce.
Then the long machine roars into more accelerated speed; as his two legs conform to the rhythmical dance patterns of the noiseless movements. At this moment, he keeps quiet, only his fingers and his whole system become alive; remain active.
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