The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Old age

  • ‘Old age not disability to artist’

    One of Nigeria’s renowned contemporary artists, Mr. Roland Udinyiwe Ogiamien, has said artists should not consider old age as a disability or hindrance to their studio practice.

    The septuagenarian stated that like in every profession, an artist at a particular age must obey the instructions of his body in response to the urge to create artworks.

    “I don’t work any longer at the same pace as I did in my 40s. Today, I don’t work more than two to three hours a day. In fat, old age can only be a disability when an artist refuses to obey the instructions of his body to the urge to create works,’’ he said.

    Ogiamen who spoke in Lagos during a sneak preview of his forthcoming exhibition, Journey Through Time, urged younger artists to make the best of their creativity in improving themselves and the society in general. He noted that if he had not gone back to art when he relocated to Benin City, the Edo State capital, he would have remained a poor man.

    “Unfortunately many artists die in poverty because when they were active, they never listened to what the spirit told them. Art is an elephant. When you kill it, you don’t share it. You call everyone to take their share because it is abundant to go round,” he added.

    Journey Through Time, which will open on Saturday April 27 at The Resource Place, Ikeja Lagos by 3pm will feature 30 trado-contemporary sculptural pieces in bronze and woodby Ogiamen and about 10 sculptures by guest artist Pa AdebanjoFasuyi, who turns 84.

    Interestingly, the exhibition Journey through time is a reflection of Ogiamen’s trajectory through the arts landscape and it is the first time he is introducing bronze sculptures into his collection for public display, which he described as a new innovation. He disclosed that bronze casting has been part of his roots in Benin as his grandmother was from the famous Igun Street bronze casting guild.

    But, his association with the late Erhabor Emokpae Art Studio as a Studio Assistant between 1967 and 1972 greatly contributed to Ogiamien’s worldview of art, especially wood carving, exhibitions and marketing.

    Ogiamen was born into a family of educationists. His father was a teacher and so were his siblings. In his time, teaching was a highly honorable job to engage in and the society treated them with a lot of respect. No wonder Roland’s father and many people at that time, saw sculpting as degrading.  He told Roland that he was engaged in a job that was the preserve of the disabled.  His father wanted him to embrace the new respected professions introduced with the dawn of colonialism and did not see art as worthwhile. In his words, “my father was against my work. He said I was doing the job reserved for disabled people.” He was made an object of ridicule in the family but this did not dampen the spirit of this great artist.

    His works embraced classic forms and dynamic compositions. For him, it is important to identify the right wood. Hard woods are more difficult to shape but have greater longevity. Soft wood have less resistance to damage, even though they are easier to carve. Ogiamen however, did carve either across or with the grains and never against the grains. The art of carving is intricate and requires a lot of understanding. The wood he works with determines his ideas and direction. He engages in a lot of abstracts and semi-abstract on Benin folklores and contemporary issues of the day.

    His artistic exploit have indeed gone through three stages. In the early 60’s was his period of apprenticeship and between 1969 and 1973 was his period of houseman ship under ErhaborEmokpaewho made a lot of beautiful designs for them to carve and work on, under his supervision. This gave him a wider horizon of contemporary art. Between 1973 and 1978, Ogiamen had developed his own ideas that were abstract and semi-abstract, though inspired by the spirit world. According to him, “I did not invite or worship the spirit. It just visited and inspires me from time to time.”  When he picks a piece of wood, a voice tells him how to carve a beautiful piece. But from 1979, his love for Christianity changed his approach. He started sculpting realism and this was the time he sculpted Blessed virgin Mary; Loving Couple; Mother and Child; Father and son; Night Romance etc. These pieces now reflect his new mood centering around love of fellow human being and joy, although some are also traditional sculptural pieces.

    Since he relocated to Benin City in 2002, he took along his R. U. Ogiamien  Art Gallery where he continues to practice wood carving, and occasionally travels round the country and beyond to supply, exhibit and handle commissions.

    Fasuyi’s sculptures for the exhibition are abstract pieces made from calabash and plastic that reflect issues in the society such as whistle blower, which the present administration is using to execute anti-corruption fight.

     Journey Through Time will run till May 4.

  • ‘Why we labour in our old age’

    ‘Why we labour in our old age’

    Against the popular belief that aged men and women should take life easy, sit back and enjoy the care and benevolence of their children and grand children, more and more old people now seem to throng the streets, working their bones for money. But is this out of a need to survive or a way of killing boredom?  Dorcas Egede spoke to some of them.

    IN recent times, a number of Nigerians have been embracing the old people’s home culture, a culture hitherto known and regarded as foreign or Western. This of course has been ascribed to their increasingly busy schedules, as jobs now come with higher demand on individuals’ time. Some, who wouldn’t go that way, for fear of being accused of dumping their elderly in ‘no-man’s-land’, have employed maids to take care of them, while they are away. But these notwithstanding, many aged people seem to be flooding the streets, laboring away, sometimes, very hard, to fend for themselves. Or is to keep their mind and body active?

    Writing to keep mind at alert

    Inside Pa Olabode’s compound is the closest one may ever be to nature. Around the vast compound are well-trimmed flowers of all kinds. So neat is the compound that one may mistake it for someone’s living room. This reporter soon discovered that Olabode is a stickler for clean environments, when he introduced himself. “I am Adesakin E. Olabode, and I’m a senior citizen of Nigeria and a blessed octogenarian. I am an accountant by profession but I’m an unwavering environmentalist. I do that even more than my profession. I practised my profession as an account clerk, as an accountant with Guinness, Texaco Nig Ltd. and others. But more importantly, my view is that Nigeria is a dirty country. In 1978/79, Lagos was being described as the third dirtiest city in the whole world and I did a lone demonstration at the Lagos State secretariat when Alhaji Lateef Jakande was governor. It was a result of that action that he started the Ministry for the Environment, when he appointed Alhaji A. L. Masha, as Commissioner for Environment. That was what turned Lagos around, but they’re spoiling it again instead of improving on the system.”

    Though the nearly 84 year old man has retired from his accounting profession, he is still very unretired as a writer and author. Asked how long he has been writing, he said, “Since the 60s. I have a lot of unpublished and published works. I think my first work was on Awo in Nigeria’s political storms in 1966. It was published and distributed freely. I’m working on my next book. I just finished one, which I’ve not published. Reading and writing help to keep my mind at alert.”

    Pa Olabode is absolutely passionate about Nigeria and would like to see the nation change for the better. He is resolutely determined to keep writing things that will effect a change in the nation. He believes that if his voice isn’t heard now, he would at least leave a lasting legacy in prints for generations yet unborn. “Like I recently said to my children, who are mostly accountants, I’m not a rich man, but I want to die as an institution. You may ask me why, but it is because I have ideas. That’s why we always say the grave is the richest place in the world. Because we have ideas and these ideas are not actualised, they’re not accomplished, they’re not brought out, and before you know it, the person is dead and all the ideas are buried with him. There are lots of things I’ve written and yet to publish; look at them, if they’re publishable, then publish them, so that when I am dead, people will have research materials. One of my previously published books is, ‘Thinking aloud with you.’ It was published in 2014 when I turned 80. The one I’m currently working on is ‘Deep thoughts,’ and it’s basically on our country.

    What’s Pa Olabode’s typical day like? “I’m up as early as 4/4:30 in the morning. The first thing I do is thank God for giving me another day to live. I do not take for granted the privilege of sleeping and waking. After this, I go brush, shave, because I shave every morning, then I proceed to have my quiet time, where I pray and allow God speak to me through his word. Thereafter, I proceed for the family devotion. After the morning devotion I can walk around. I do walk around fairly. After walking around, I take my breakfast and get to work, writing or reading. I also find time during the day to pay visits to members of my church in the neighbourhood.”

    Still doing supply rounds at 77

    Every time you see Mrs. M. A. Joseph, 77 behind the wheels, you’re most likely going to be struggling within yourself to come to terms with the fact that she has lived nearly eight decades. She’s as strong behind the wheels, as any young person. On this particular morning, she was smartly dressed in a pair of pants, a tee-shirt and a fez cap; ready to go out for supplies.

    Though she looks every bit as strong as a hart, mama said she tries not to drive too far away from her immediate environment. “I drive within Festac and environs” she said. As a business woman who has to daily supply goods to her customers, mama said, “I go out for supplies daily, but I make sure I only go to a few places I know will not put too much strain on me.”

    Mrs. Joseph lives with one of her grandsons. Even though her children are all well-established and take care of her, mama insists on working “just for the fun of it and to keep me going.” This is owing to the general belief that old people tend to grow weaker and even die, if they embrace idleness.

    A visit to some markets revealed that a number of aged women who ought to be in homes for the old or at best, being taken care of in their children’s homes are still working rather hard for their age and strength to irk out a living for themselves and maybe their children. In a market at Ayobo, in the Alimosho LGA of the state, our reporter spoke with some aged market women to find out why they were still working at their age. Iya Suliat (not real name) who sat behind limes and garden eggs, which she displayed at the market, when asked why she still had to work at her age, said in Yoruba “Bi ilu se ri na ni” meaning that the state of the nation has required her to keep working to fend for herself. How about her children? This reporter quipped. From the response she gave it was obvious that even her children had a hard time taking care of themselves, she only prayed life would deal kindly with them so that they would be able to take care of her. “We are praying that it will be well with them and they will be well established in life.”

    Iya Jimoh (not real name) on the other hand, trades in limes, whole and juiced lime, packaged in bottles. She revealed to this reporter that she used to sell vegetables in large quantities before. Needless to say, now she is no longer as strong as she used to be, and so cannot sell more than what she had displayed on her table. According to the old woman, her children have constantly prodded her too stop going to the market. In fact, she told our reporter that she had just returned from staying with one of her daughters for nearly three months, within which she was sick and recuperating, but that as soon as she regained her strength, she had quickly taken her things and run back to her own apartment, as she couldn’t wait to continue with her buying and selling. Though she couldn’t exactly tell her age, she should be in her late 70s at the least.

    According to her, staying idle at home would only cause her health to degenerate the more. She strongly believes she is better off leaving the house every morning, even though she merely makes anything substantial enough to sustain her.

    Mr Owolabi Michael Arogundade is a 60 year old school bus driver, who as a result of the hard blows life has dealt him, looks like he’s in his late 70s. “I started driving for the Federal Government Staff School, Ijanikin 10 years ago when I couldn’t continue my work as a mechanic anymore. I am also a small pastor in one of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.”

    Asked why he was still driving a school bus at his age, he said,

    “I am still working because I don’t have money in a bank to fall back to and I am not going to be entitled to anything after retirement. The only thing that can make me retire now is if I am fully ordained a pastor because I can’t go back to being a mechanic, which is my original trade, so I will keep working until I can work no more, because I have  a son  that is still in Junior Secondary School and I pay his fees.”

    Born 1946, 71 year old Patrick Adefioye, works at the Alimosho Local Government Council. “I am occupying an elective position. I am a member of the Community Development Committee, CDC. We were elected by communities to come and represent the different communities in this local government. We have about 214 communities under this local government and 22 of us were elected to oversee activities of these communities and report back to management of this Council.”

    Adefioye, who is apparently working to stay busy, when asked how he’s coping with the work said he finds it very enjoyable because he wasn’t used to being idle.

  • Worry less about gray hair

    Worry less about gray hair

    While some people welcome gray hair, which many believe, is associated with old age, others cannot stand it. The good news: Scientists are hard at work on how to prevent it. However, research has shown that using natural ingredients will help to boost and rejuvenate the hair, Omolara Akintoye writes

    EVERY man and woman knows the day will come, and they all dread it. You look in the mirror, and there it is — your first gray hair! Men are seen shaving their hair while women start dyeing it or covering their hair with wig. While some people start experiencing it at a later age, some are not that lucky. In an interview with Mrs. Lucy Odunayo, a business woman, she recalled how she started battling gray hair from her youthful days. “My mother gave birth to me in her late forties, so my mum had been told that I would start experiencing gray hair early. So, I had no choice than to start wearing wig right from my youthful days,” she lamented. For Mr. John Iluoma, he had to have his hair shaved to keep gray hair at bay.

    What actually causes gray hair is as simple as normal aging. As we get older, we produce less of two enzymes: the first is an enzyme that helps break down hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide is a well-known tool for bleaching hair, but did you know your hair cells actually make hydrogen peroxide? As we age, the amount produced increases, ultimately bleaching hair pigment. A Beauty Consultant/ Dermatologist, Temitope Faronbi, who spoke on the causes of

    gray hair, said with age, we also produce less of another enzyme that helps repair damaged hair follicles. This slow down reduces the amount of pigment, or melanin that we produce. If the amount of melanin is reduced, the hair turns gray. Once the production of melanin is stopped altogether, hair turns white.

    According to Faronbi, gray hair is not necessarily associated with old age. Many reasons can be attributed to it, such as depression, stress, inadequate rest, not eating balanced diet, lack of supplement, health issues, among others. “When someone is not happy, he/she can start having gray hair, because it leads to hormonal imbalance and this can make someone to have gray hair,” said Faronbi. A lot of people cannot manage stress, but irrespective of what you are going through, you should be able to manage your health.

    Similar to hair loss, Faronbi pointed out that gray hair is primarily the result of genetics. “You can look to your parents or grandparents for a glimpse of what the future may hold for your looks,” she said. Basically, ask your parents when they got their first gray hairs, and you may just be getting a glimpse into your future.

    Of course, you’re not going to wake up one day and be totally gray. It’s a process, and that process typically follows a pattern. Gray hairs will first appear around your temples, and slowly fill in and move up and around your scalp. While it’s not lucky that they tend to show up first right up front, at least you can take comfort in the fact that if your temples aren’t gray, there probably aren’t any in the back of your head you don’t know about, either.

    Speaking on how it can be prevented, Faronbi said do what makes you happy; ensure that you are among people with positive mindset, be happy, eat enough balanced diet, take the necessary supplement. “Go for beauty therapy and body massage; take care of your health. Gray hair is

    more common among women than men because of domestic violence as well as other things being faced by women on a daily basis. It also affects men, especially those that are financially low. They can start looking older and having gray hair, but in the course of my work it affects more women than men.”

    Faronbi warned that people should not pull off gray hair. “Once one is pulled off, it starts coming out more,” she disclosed. One of the ways it can be checked, according to Faronbi, is the use of natural shampoo made with okro and apple cinder vinegar can be used.  “Rather than using harsh chemical substance, use natural ingredients which will help to boost and rejuvenate the hair.” She stated.   Carrot oil or coconut oil can be used as hair oil. She said also that the hair can be massaged with egg oil. Egg oil contains anti-oxidant which arrests premature aging (graying) of hair and even reverses early stage gray hair.

    She advised that people should avoid dyeing their hair. Dyeing, she pointed out, will increase the grey hair.  Managing gray hair, according to her, also implies staying off smoking, as effect of smoking is also linked to premature hair graying, with the onset of gray hair occurring before the age of 30.

    Get enough vitamins: Vitamins (including B12) are essential for hair and skin health. When you have a deficiency, your hair can prematurely begin to lose some of its pigment or even fall out (it may fall out if you have a zinc deficiency), making you gray or bald (you’d want to avoid both).

    Finally, Faronbi tasked people to take multivitamin supplements to prevent going gray too early. “Taking supplements isn’t a magic potion guaranteed to keep your hair colourful, but it may give you a little extra time before it turns gray,” she said.

  • Old age is like a plague

    The inimitable French patriot and president, General Charles de Gaulle in his old age said old age is like a plague which will affect us all at one time or the other. Charles de Gaulle, like his contemporary, Winston Churchill of Great Britain was one of the most colorful figures of the 20th century. He was so sure of his iconic stature that he said emphatically “Apres moi; la deluge”; somehow he looked down on fellow French men because of their politics of division. He was quoted to have said “If you lock two French men in a room to form a political party, they will come out with three!” As president of France, he ruled like the pre-revolution Bourbon kings to the extent that he was said to have said “La France; c’est moi”. Even if this was apocryphal, Charles de Gaulle’s image loomed so large that anything said about him and his France was believable!  I watched him in 1968 while I was a student in France retire grudgingly to his village of Colombey- les-Deux-Eglises after students uprising against his authoritarian rule.

    Now what is a plague? It is a disease apparently spread by rats or mice that has caused a lot of damage and death historically. There are two periods of English history that is associated with heavy and high morbidity and mortality caused by plague. Between June 1348 and December 1349 was the period known as “Black Death” when the population of London was almost wiped out. The second incident was between 1665 and 1666 known as “London plague” when tens of thousands of Londoners again surrendered to death caused by plague. There was no cure against it. Once it broke out, death was a certainty to virtually all and sundry. Those who survived it bore the burden of burying every day the dead and waited for the dying. It reminds one of what Albert Einstein said that in the event of thermonuclear war, all human beings will die either directly or through radioactive fallout but rats will survive to inherit the earth!

    This long preamble is to establish the certainty of death in human experience and existence. When I was young and as the youngest child of my mother, I always prayed for her that she will never die . This was because my father had died before her and the thought of being an orphan was not something I cherished. My mother would smile and say “if I didn’t die, whose footsteps or example would I be following”? She would then add that death would come when it would come. I never wanted to hear this. But my prayers were answered and my mother died in her 90s.

    The recent deaths of Professor Abiola Irele, Maitama Sule and my sister-in-law, Mabel Osuntokun all in their eighties brought to my thought the inevitability of our mortal end. We must of course thank God that our people these days are living longer than before when the average lifespan of Nigerians was 47 years. Of course, the average age still remains in the 50s but there is evidence to show that people are beginning to live longer than before. My illustrious brothers died in their 60s and people, including myself, began to feel we did not have the genes of longevity in my family! We have however turned the corner and confounded the wicked ones who may wish us dead before our appointed time.

    I remember Professor Irele with fondness because as a young university student, I read his articles and essays on negritude. The period immediately after African countries’ independence presented us with the problems of identity. Should we be seen as “black English men and women” some kind of miserable mimics of the white colonizer or Africans manifesting what the likes of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana called “the African personality” or what the totally assimilated Franco-African and Franco-Caribbean from Martinique and Guadeloupe in the persons respectively of the Senegalese President Leopold Sedar Senghor and the Martinique-an, Aime Cesaire called negritude? It was Abiola Irele who made sense out of what was sometimes a charged debate. Sedar Senghor who ironically was married to a white woman as most of the apostles of negritude were, celebrated the blackness of our ebony skin as being suitable for the tropics and prevented us from sun induced cancers as in white skins, our thick lips were suitable for our clime. Nowadays, white women do surgeries to make their thin lips big like those of Africans that are regarded as good for kissing! Our big nose was to aid breathing in the heavy air in the tropics. Our joie de vivre, our music and dance and our emotional and intuitive attitude was contrasted with the dry and Cartesian and wicked and killer disposition of the whites. The point of our uniqueness and difference from other people was made by our independence leaders to the point of absurdity that made people like Wole Soyinka dismiss negritude by saying a tiger needs not advertise its tigritude since it will be obvious.

    Irele of course went on to distinguish himself as one of the greatest literary critics who by his essays made African writers better. He will be missed not only in Africa but in Europe and the Americas where at one time or the other, he lived and practiced his trade of literary criticism. As for Maitama Sule, people of my generation even when we were still in school admired him from a distance. He represented the happy go lucky branch of humanity in a conservative northern Nigeria of Ahmadu Bello, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Kashim Ibrahim. Maitama Sule partied around Lagos in 1960s with cabinet colleagues like T.O. S Benson and John Modupe Johnson. By his own testimony, when he heard that Princess Alexandria who represented her majesty, Queen Elizabeth at Nigeria’s independence would expect to dance at the independence ball with our Prime Minister who did not know how to dance and as a Muslim would not do it, young Maitama, with the approval of the Prime Minister, quickly learnt how to do ballroom dancing and carried the princess elegantly through a couple of foxtrot and jive to the surprise and admiration of all. Maitama easily made friends and he was a bridge to the youth and other parts of the country which were not familiar with the North and northerners generally. I was always bemused by his parody of Martin Luther King’s famous speech “I have a dream ….” with Maitama replacing King’s dream for black Americans with his own version of a Dream for Nigeria. There is no doubt that the Masanin Kano will be missed by his few colleagues still alive and the rest of us. The point must be made that no matter how distinguished one may be, death is an inevitable end. In my own town of Okemesi, our masquerades who in our culture are seen to come from heaven would always say – heaven needs not be in a hurry because we are all coming there!

    If we all know that all our accumulation of wealth is futile, perhaps we will moderate our struggle for wealth which is driving our people to extreme extent to get rich quickly. Kidnapping , fetish requiring human blood to get rich quickly, outright looting and financial self-aggrandizement when we occupy public positions are unfortunate manifestation of a culture which lives for today unmindful of what legacies we leave behind when we leave this mortality for immortality. Death is a necessary end and it will come when it will come and it is no respecter of gender or age. It is always a sad thing to hear the news of any one’s death particularly of young people but as we say in Africa, the death of someone we know is a signal that our own time we surely come.