World renowned textile artist, Chief Oyenike Monica Okundaye, popularly called Nike Okundaye, owns the biggest private art gallery in Africa and currently has one of her works permanently on display at the Smithsonian Museum in the United States of America. Within a period of six months this year, two universities have honoured her with doctoral degrees for her contribution to arts and humanity. She spoke with OKORIE UGURU about her transition from her humble background to global acclaim and her experience as one of 15 women married to one man, among other issues concerning her career and love life.
You have received two honorary doctoral degrees this year in a space of six months. Was it something you envisaged?
Not at all. Actually, when the University from South Africa called me and said in a selection pool of 100 names, your name came first for the award of doctorate degree, I said me? It is not me. They said yes. I went to tell my husband about it, and he said don’t mind them, maybe they want to kidnap you (laughs). They got in touch with the South African embassy in Nigeria and the embassy came and told us that every year, from the 55 countries in Africa, they university would select 100 names from which people from different countries voted, and I came first.
The same thing they did with the doctorate award in Osun State University. You know how many artists we have in Nigeria, and they said my name came first. After the doctorate from South Africa, I was not even thinking of another doctorate this year. I was thinking maybe in another 10 years, I might be lucky to get another one. I just thank God and thank my country. You see, everything depends on destiny.
Talking about destiny, you started from a very humble background in…
(Cuts in) Ogidi, a small village in Kogi State.
Not Osogbo?
They only took me to Osogbo when I was seven. My elder sister lived there. She was an adire (local fabric) maker. A lot of people ask me, ‘Are you a native of Osogbo?’ I lived most of my years in Osogbo. It is only recently that I started telling people that I am from Kogi State. People don’t know me as Nike Kogi, they know me as Nike Osogbo.
So, when I started in Osogbo, I didn’t have a dime. I came to Osogbo not knowing where destiny was taking me to. I just knew that I was to be a labourer, working with my aunt. I worked as a labourer at construction sites, carrying blocks and mixed concrete. I fetched stones, firewood, and water when I came to Osogbo around 1958. I was paid three pence for a drum of water. I was only seven when I came. Even when I started this art thing, we were regularly fasting, saying that because we were fasting, God would bring food. And I still had to go and work as a labourer. On getting to the site, you had to queue. It was two shillings for a day’s job. I would work the whole day carrying mixed concrete. Because I was hard working, they would always pick me.
My most terrible experience in this profession occurred in 1982 where fire burnt in the United States of America (USA). My ex-husband (Taiwo Adeniyi a.k.a Twin Seven Seven) had asked me to go and represent him in Washington DC. The gallery where I was exhibiting was burnt down by fire. All my things were burnt. We had to go to the Nigerian embassy. The embassy lent us 250 dollars each. The others said they would not return to Nigeria, but I said I was going home. I returned to Lagos without a dime. I took a cab to Federal Palace Hotel because some of the shops at the hotel used to sell my batik. When I got there, I approached one of the shop owners whose name is Fatai. I told him to lend me the money I would use to transport myself to Osogbo and promised to pay him back when I got there.
In Osogbo, everyone was wondering why someone who had just returned from a trip to the US, where she stayed for three months, was borrowing money. I narrated what happened. The story was published in the now rested Sketch newspaper. When I got back to Osogbo, the car I packed there, the tyres had been deflated. I started using the car as ‘kabukabu’, carrying passengers with it from Sekona (Osogbo) to Ibadan and from Ibadan to Lagos.
You were into informal commercial transportation and drove on the highway?
Yes, I had to. I even drove to Kano. I used to ride to Kano on a motorcycle.
Are you serious?
Yes. In our area, we ride the motorcycle a lot. My ex-husband used to drive very fast and he taught me how to ride the motorcycle. I became the one to carry him, because most times he was drunk, he would be involved in accident. So, I started carrying him on motorcycle. Whenever we were going to Kano, we would first ride to Ilorin. From Ilorin, we would ride to Kaduna, and from Kaduna, we would ride to Kano.
On a bike?
Yes. We were using the Vespa brand. I was the first female to ride a motorcycle in Osogbo. I also rode a bicycle. The first money I saved, I used it to buy a bicycle. There was no place I didn’t go with the bicycle then. Five kobo was the taxi fare in Osogbo then, but I could not afford it. I started renting bicycle for two kobo, and for a whole day, I could ride it to anywhere I wanted.
When you came to Osogbo, it was to do menial and odd jobs. Now you are like the poster lady shown on CNN daily with your big head tie. How would you reflect on your life from that humble beginning to this point, owning the biggest private art gallery in Africa?
I think it is just destiny, prayers and patience. I pray all the time. And anything you want to become in life, once you have patience, you would always reach there, no matter how hard it is. So, that is what has brought me thus far, because I faced a lot of obstacles. Sometimes, I would say should I go on strike? Then I would tell myself I cannot. If I go on strike, I would spoil the good things coming in the future. Sometimes I would cry inside of me. I would go to a corner and cry instead of fighting. Can you imagine? We called it Commotion House; 15 women married to one man. Three of us were sleeping in one bed. We were first sleeping on the mat before graduating to the bed. So, when I just look back and see what patience can do, I always tell people that with patience, there is nothing you cannot become. It is patience, prayers and hard work.
Apart from hard work, I believe the depth of your artistic creativity played a role; somebody with little or no formal education with such depth of creative talent that shines out. Where did that come from?
It is from my parents. I am a fifth generation ‘adire’ maker. My great grandmother lived in Ede where they do ‘adire’. So, my family from Kogi had been living in Osogbo and Ede. Even my uncle was among the first people to make braids. My great grandmother was a weaver in Jos. My father worked with beads. That is the bead work I am doing now on plywood. My father would make beaded crowns. He worked for the king all his life. He had no money. He had no house of his own. I built a house for him.
In Abeokuta and Osogbo, there are ‘adire’ makers. There must be something about your work that made you stand out. It is the impetus for that distinctiveness that I am asking about…
I think it is the figure I used to put in my work. You know that ‘adire oni pattern’ is popular in Abeokuta. Hand-painted ‘adire’ is popular in Ibadan, Osogbo and Iseyin. It is just like the hand-woven. You know the whole Nigeria do one form of ‘adire’ or the other. In the whole of Nigeria, this is the clothe that unites us.
When they started putting colour, turning it into purple and other colours, they called it ‘kampala’. They say that ‘kampala’ comes from Uganda, but we were already doing our own ‘adire’. So, this ‘adire’ we are doing, we can tie it with dye. So, I started using figures and images. When people come, the locals did not buy mine. But white people, whenever they come, they would open mine and buy them. I would explain the imageries on my design to them in Yoruba because then, I could not speak English. I usually put the images of a drummer, ‘Arugba’ and so on. So, my ex-husband (Twin Seven Seven) would always say the way you are drawing, there is something about you.
In other words, you moved from the conventional pattern to distinctive imagery that made your works different and unique?
Yes.
And you tried to use the designs as a medium to express your creativity?
Yes. You know I went to see Mama Susanne (the late Susanne Wenger). I told her Mama, I want to be like you. She said she came to Nigeria to learn ‘adire’, that she was a painter. She said okay, bring your work and let me see. That was in 1964. After seeing it, she said, ‘you are already a professi onal. This is what I came here to learn in Ede.’ She said I should package myself in a nice way and make sure I did it well. So, each time I produced a new work, I would tell my aunt, ‘I want to go and show it to Mama,’ and she would encourage and advise me not to partner with anybody. ‘Just face your work and have a focus.’
Susanne Wenger was also teaching the men new things. They were using aluminum to do earring. She was telling them to explore using the aluminum for other things like wall hanger. For example, this is created in Benin (showing a craft). We turned this into key holder. It was my own idea to turn it into key holder. This particular one, I turned it into earring. I was wanted to sell Nigeria with the green and white. All these are recycled from plastic.
We started recycling in 1982 with Mama Georgina, the second wife of Ulli Beier. She was the coordinator for the members of Osogbo School of Arts while Mama (Susanne Wenger) coordinated the senior ones, the stone carvers.
Without the ambience of creativity around you in Osogbo, would you have developed into the renowned artist that you have turned out to be?
After my primary school, I went to Kabba (Kogi State) to work as a babysitter to get money to pay the balance of my school fees. I was doing embroidery there, which I learnt from my father. In one of the embroideries I did, I wrote ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ on it and also drew an angel. It was given to a reverend sister. She was to take it to Canada. She requested for extra four at five shilling each. That was big money for me. I was so happy and was wondering within me, ‘So, one could make money from this?’ I was also scoring 100 per cent in craft while in school.
How do you feel starting as a housemaid to your work being displayed at Smithsonian Museum of African Arts in the US?
For Smithsonian Museum, I did not know that my work could be part of the collections. It all started when the former United States President Bill Clinton visited Nigeria. One of the congressmen on the entourage, who I had met in 1982, insisted that the United States Information Service (USIS) must bring me to Abuja. I was flown to Abuja to meet with him. He was so happy to see me and introduced me to President Bill Clinton and his daughter. They presented a small work to me and wrote me a letter.
During the visit to Nigeria, the woman called Robin (Sanders) came with them. I now said they should give me all their names. I wanted to take it to the mountain. There is a hilly mountain in my village, I wanted to go and pray for them there. You know they are African-Americans. I took it there. Somebody from my family used to lead the prayers. I told them look at this group of African-Americans, I wanted to bring them to Ogidi but it was not possible. They looked at the list and told me to write their names on the mountain. They also told me that one person from the list would come to Ogidi. I asked who, and they said Robin. I told them she had gone back to America with the American President, but they told me to go and write it down, that she was going to come back in a big way.
I couldn’t understand the meaning of ‘coming back in a big way.’ I wanted them to come during the visit of Clinton because it was a three-hour drive from Abuja, but it was not possible. The next thing I saw, Robin was brought to Nigeria as an ambassador; the first American female ambassador to Nigeria. She came to look for me, because she loves textiles. She left Clinton in Abuja and came to Lagos. She is also an artist. Then when she returned here as an ambassador, we made her one of our daughters. I took her to Ogidi village and she was given a chieftaincy title.
A fulfillment of the prophecy?
Yes. That was how she bought two of my works and donated them to the Smithsonian Museum. She folded the works and they cracked. The museum then said they needed a Nigerian to restore the work. I volunteered to do that but they said no, unless they could get a person willing to sponsor the trip to the US. One day, the current Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly, Chinedu, walked in. I told him Ambassador Robin is looking for somebody to restore my work and they don’t want me to do it myself. He spoke with Ambassador Robin and he sponsored the restoration. That was how my work was able to get admitted to the Smithsonian Museum. Do you know the second work from Nigeria that is there? Njideka’s work. It is going for $3.4 million, that is about N1.2 billion. One work.
Njideka Akunyili’s work?
Yes, Njideka Akunyili, the daughter of Dora, the former NAFDAC woman. Her work is the most expensive art work in Africa.
At a particular point in time in your life, there was a switch. You were based in Osogbo but decided to relocate…
From Osogbo I moved to Ede when I got married to a white man.
He was not your first husband…
My first husband was Twin Seven Seven. We were 15 wives. I left Twin Seven Seven after 15 years. I said I had had enough. I had been travelling and I knew how to make money by then. I said I was not giving my money to him again. I organised the other wives. One day, I asked him why he married 15 of us and he said it was because he just enjoyed seeing two women fighting over him because he was a handsome man. I said oh, you married us just to see us fighting over you? I said I had had enough. The younger wives used to beat us. Whenever they wanted to beat me, I would beg them and bribe them with the money I made from the labourer’s job I used to do and they would leave me alone. That was how I was able to survive.
While I was living there, we went for an exhibition in Kaduna Museum. They wrote in the papers that the sisters are now doing it for themselves. People didn’t understand; they thought we were all sisters, not knowing that we were co-wives but called ourselves sisters. By then, we were no more fighting ourselves because we had left the man. That was how one white man working Costain construction company, decided to come and see our exhibition. He said he had been working for 25 years in Africa then and had not seen female artists. By then I had finished building my first house. It took me 15 years to build the house. All of us, the co-wives, moved in there. When he came, he said he liked us and would want to marry the senior sister, which was me. I said no, to marry a white man? I said Twin will kill you. My other co-wives advised me to marry the man. If this man (Twin) wants to cause trouble for us, at least you would have somebody to fight for us. That was how the relationship started. Two years later, we decided to get married.
Where is he now?
He has returned to the United Kingdom (UK).
Why did you not go back with him?
He wanted me to leave the job I am doing. He actually married me because of my job. Then he said when we return to the United Kingdom, I would be a housewife. I said I could not leave my job to become a house wife. I told him I used this job to buy you a house. We bought a house in Kenya from this job.
Finally looking at the whole gamut of your life so far, do you have any regrets?
Well, I always thank God. I think I don’t have any cause to say I have regrets, even though the road was not as smooth as I wanted it. Today, I thank God. I would sit down here and people come from all over the world to see me—the King of Morocco, the President of Canada, British Prime Minister, and so on. What else do I want?
My ambition now is to open a gallery in the United States to create more awareness about African art, especially the Nigerian art. That is why I do not put the works of other African artists here; only Nigerian artists.
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