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Nigerian artists lament UNESCO absence in culture sector
(The Gurardian)

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By Chuka Nnabuife

A verdict of lacklustre performance in sponsorship of arts projects was passed last week as Nigerian artists assessed the activities of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in the country.

This view came on the occasion of the Silver Jubilee anniversary of the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of the Artist, which passed last Thursday without a celebration or a statement from the UN body's office in Nigeria. The absence of celebration from other related government and non-governmental agencies tended to corroborate the view.

On October 27, 1985, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, the General Conference of UNESCO in its 21st session adopted the Recommendations Concerning the Status of the Artist following a report made by its programme commission IV after 37th Plenary meeting.

Last Thursday, was the 25th anniversary of that epochal document, which among other issues called for more social and infrastructural incentive for artists.

Highpoints of the recommendation which drew extensively from such earlier statutes as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations, Article 6 and 15 of the UN International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights among many other sources include pronouncements on necessity of UNESCO member state intervention in the arts sector. Understanding that in contemporary global economy the work of artists may not be as economically rewarding as that of other profesionals in other industrial sectors, the statute urged state and corporate sector endowment of charities and welfare schemes that would aid the arts. Among areas identified as ways of supporting the sector are through the evolvement of enabling policies, provision of facilities and sponsorship of vocation and training of the artist as well as employment of the creative people.

For example, Article III:3 of the recommendation reads: "Member States, recognising the role of art in the life and development of society, accordingly have a duty to protect, defend and assist artists and their freedom of creation. For this purpose, they should take all necessary steps to stimulate artistic creativity and the flowering of talent, in particular by adopting measures to secure greater freedom for artists, without which they cannot fulfil their mission, and to improve their status by acknowledging their right to enjoy the friuts of their work. Member States should endeavour by all appropriate means to secure increased participation by artists in decisions concerning the quality of life. By all means at their disposal, Member States should demonstrate and confirm that artistic activities have a part to play in the nation's global development effort to build a juster and more humane society and to live in together in circumstances of peace and spiritual enrichment."

Similarly, the forth and fifth sections of the Article III called on nations to make "appropriate legislative" decisions as well as policies that assist the arts and culture sector.

But as last week's anniversary of the well acclaimed statute came and passed without befitting commemoration, some of the throes of the Nigerian arts and culture sector which, had the country adhered to the recommendation, would have been long solved, came to fore. One of such odd, is that neither the country nor any of its 36 states and 776 local councils has an endowment programme for the arts. Apart from the National Theatre and some State art councils, there are no other place where artists would get such facilities as studios, theatres, concert halls, galleries, production equipment and other necessary tools of infrastructure for their work. Copyright law enforcement and patent rights are still big problems, living pirates to feed fat as Nigerian artists wallow in poverty. The artists are equally nowhere near the corridors of power while their trade seem yet to be seen as important by policy makers.

The Belgrade recommendation made pronouncements on these and more issues.

However, the National Gallery of Art (NGA) took the opportunity of the silver jubilee to draw attention to its contribution to artists in the visual arts genre. Adressing a hurriedly organised gathering of about a dozen artists and journalists, Sewhenu Adekunle Akran, Deputy Director, Head of Research and Publications, at NGA's Aina Onabolu Art Centre, National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos, said that though the lives and practice of Nigerian artists may not have improved remarkablly as projected by the Belgrade forum, existence of the government established gallery, he reasoned, has helped add some incentives.

Akran recalls several things NGA has done in the area of providing training, exhibition and research facilities for artists, initiatives which are in line with the recommendation even as those gestures are still like drops of water falling into a sea. His reasoning was that until well meaning individuals, the corporate sector and other agencies come in to help in the kind of course NGA is taking, the situation of artists may turn worse.

Akran noted: "Government alone and the handful private facilities cannot satisfy the needs of our teeming multitude of artistes working in traditional and modern mediums and techniques of visuals, performing, literary and media arts all over the country and beyond. The opportunity provided by this occasion of the 25 years of the adaptation of the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of the Artist therefore calls on the attention of all patrons of the arts, private gallery owners, art connoisseurs, traditional rulers, professional artist societies and artist groups, art schools as well as art movements to patronise this statutes towards providing more studies, workshops and other conducive working facilities for the artist nation-wide."

The occasion also gave room for participants to appraise the activities of UNESCO in Nigeria. And the consensus was that it has been poor. Artists, specifically claimed that they had been excluded from enjoying what their contemporaries around the world reap from their country's membership of UNESCO.

Former Dean of School of Arts Design and Printing, Yaba College of Technology, (YABATECH) Mr. Mike Omoighe, was of the opinion that UNESCO has not done well for Nigerian artists. "Compared to what happens in neighbouring Francophone countries, one may even say there is nothing happening here as regards UNESCO

Sponsorship of arts and cultural projects.

"Infact, the issue is : Has UNESCO been able to have sufficient presence in Nigeria?" Omoighe retorted.

Continuing, the painter observed that since the 1980s when Nigeria's National Commission on UNESCO became more controlled by the Ministry of Education, the cultural angle of the United Nation's Organisation in Nigeria has suffered.

"The UNESCO Commission in Nigeria should have clear distinctive sections. For the organisation to effectively cover all the areas it is responsible to. There should be cultural section, catering for the cultural activities of UNESCO in Nigeria, an education section for its educational activities, and a science section for scientific projects too... In the 1980s, we used to have it like that, and artists were being carried along. But ever since some other arrangement came to effect, artists don't even know what is happening again."

The artists claimed that even the visual arts' national umbrella body, Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA) which used to be intimated of UNESCO activities, has ceased to be communicated ever since the said change of order in the 1980s. The general argument was that if there was a closer relationship between Nigeria's culture sector and the UN agency, practitioners would have through the assistance of the body, got some more favourable deal from government and the corporate world.

However, there were observations that absence of cross-genre coporation among Nigerian artist(e)s and the failure of majority of the nation's artists to explore opportunities provided by global information technologies may also be contributive to the said odds against Nigerian artists in UNESCO projects.

The verdict: Nigeria is yet to start on a visible part towards the achievement of the global Recommendations Concerning the Status of the Artist. In an attempt to get the gathering understand the import of the statute, Akran had began the discussion part of his address with these words: "The issue is, have we (Nigeria) started?" But when the discussion ended almost everybody chorused: "The issue is what has our country and UNESCO done for Nigerian artists, 25 years after Belgrade?"

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