In Frank Aig-Imoukhuede, you can hardly get an extrovert artist. From the literary statesman who has now scored 90 golden goals in the match of life, it is indeed too late to have a loquacious personality. Yet, a reflective look at the history of his contributions to the development of arts and culture in Nigeria and continent-wide reveals a rebellious artist who likes to tread a different road to a clearly defined destination. Put less clumsily, as the creative community rolls out the drum to celebrate the icon who is now joining other legendary writers like his sister Mabel Segun and Wole Soyinka in the 90s’ club, they will be saluting no one less than a consistent custodian of revolutionary craft.
Reflect on Aig-Imoukhuede’s exploits in literature and you see a word merchant who, like the thumb in a crowd of fingers, often chooses to stand apart from the usual crowd. This is particularly validated by his choice of language, which (style/language) is also what marks out other great brands such as Chinua Achebe, Soyinka and Niyi Osundare. While Achebe, for instance, dared to be different with the highly successful marriage of the English Language and Igbo, say, as we have in Things Fall Apart; and Wole Soyinka rattled the scene with his usually synthetic metaphors that also benefited from Yoruba’s confounding linguistic assets, Aig-Imoukhuede engagingly courted pidgin, as we have in his popular collection, Pidgin Stew and Sufferhead. The work published in 1982, when the Shehu Shagari-led Second Republic was fumbling and, as usual, wobbling the country into a seemingly bottomless ditch, is a book of 36 poems largely written in Pidgin English, forming a “kaleidoscope of the Nigerian condition”.
With his escape into the world of pidgin, Aig-Imoukhuede proved creatively rebellious and helped in democratising the language of modern literature on the continent. Besides, he was/is able to demystify poetry, which many see as being unnecessarily and scarily too difficult to understand. As a matter of fact, his romance with pidgin poetry reminds one about how Fela Anikulapo Kuti deployed the popular street and market code to propel afrobeat, the genre that became globally phenomenal and arguably later procreated afrobeats, the modernist form that has now revolutionised Nigerian music, featuring superstars such as Wizkid, Davido, Burna Boy, Chike and Ayra Starr. Interestingly — or ironically, if not disappointingly — while a good number of our artistes (and comedians) have wisely continued to productively feast on pidgin, most of younger Nigerian writers have failed to pick the baton where Aig-Imoukhuede kept it. Well, the likes of the late Tunde Fatunde and Femi Fatoba, as well as Odia Ofeimun and Folu Agoi, experimented with pidgin in their writings but many have simply failed to see its potential in spreading the gospel of poetry.
Some of the poems in Pidgin Stew and Sufferedhead are ‘Flood don Come’, ‘Wetin you Get Wey your Head dey Swell’, ‘One Man, One Wife’, ‘Sufferhead’, ‘Aduke’ and ‘Kilimanjaro’. Although the taste of the pudding is in the eating, the titles sound inviting, and that is one of the things pidgin does. Indeed, in Pidgin Stew and Sufferhead, Aig-Imoukhuede proved that it (pidgin), is not inferior to any other language in terms of shouldering all kinds of messages. In some poems, he addresses politics. In some, he speaks to our cultural values while he explores love and other man’s adventures in other poems. So, apart from helping to make the genre accessible, he proves that the language (pidgin) can be as rich as any other one. It must thus be emphasised that with his cultivation of it at a time many of his colleagues ran to the market with conventional English, he proved he is a literary rebel with a great cause.
As a student at the University of Ibadan, Aig-Imoukhuede had also deployed his creative rebellion to stem what he perceived to be racial abuse — even if it was a subtle one. He had observed that in theatre production, certain roles — like those of animals — were often given to Nigerian students while their white lecturers enjoyed the privilege of elevated roles. His response to this was not to carry placards, though the father of the foremost banker, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, of the Access Bank fame, was also an activist then. Rather, he held a passionate and revolutionary dialogue with his muse. The result were plays he wrote which were then staged by the theatre group of the same varsity. As a result, Aig-Imoukhuede made history for his became the first play by a Nigerian to be staged by the UI group. With the feat, he not only broke the jinx for his fellow playwrights, he also emphatically made a statement that literature should not be used as a vehicle for racial abuse.
While he has also been involved in mentoring younger generations at individual and organisational levels, Aig-Imoukhuede, who had also scripted radio series that include ‘Oga Mr Councillor’ and Constable Joe’, with his other books including Between God and Man and A Calendar of Nigerian Traditional Festivals, equally proved that an artist can fit into public as well as corporate settings. As is noted in one of his rich profiles, in 1971, Aig-Imoukhuede was appointed the very first Cultural Officer of the Federal Civil Service, rising to the position of Principal Cultural Officer by 1975. During this time, he supervised Nigeria’s entries and exhibitions in the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC). Between 1975 and 1988, he held the post of Director, National Council for Arts and Culture, coordinating States’ Arts Councils and the yearly National Festival of Arts, NAFEST. In 1988, Frank Aig-Imoukhuede was appointed the Federal Director of Culture, a position he held until his retirement in 1995. In the course of his service, he provided a bridge between the artistes community and the powers that be.
No wonder he has become so attached to the sector that, even in his grey age, he was at the forefront of those who protested the sale and cloudy concession of the National Arts Theatre, Lagos, now Wole Soyinka Centre for Culture and Creative Arts. It is soothing that after various attempts to ‘concession’, privatise’ or do any other thing with the monument, it is evolving bigger and better as a multicultural centre, thanks to the intervention of the ‘Bankers Committee’ — and hoping that stakeholders will not be shut out when the Theatre is finally fully back in business. Of course, it is sure that if every other person keeps silent is the arts community is sidelined, one man rise and fight their cause: and that is the birthday boy, Frank Abiodun Aig-Imoukhuede, the fermented and trusted voice, the most senior advocate of our cultural landscape.
