Renaissance-guy Victor Ehikhamenor

I found this excellent Victor Ehikhamenor interview on SamUmukoro.com.  VE is a talented creative writer, celebrated visual artist, design expert and culture buff who wants to institute a great museum someday.  I like telling people I know him.
Read the FULL  INTERVIEW (two pages).  Excerpts:

SU: What inspired you to put together your articles into the book Excuse Me!?
VICTOR EHIKHAMENOR: There were a few inspirations or should I say reasons. One of them was that the articles which appeared under my weekly column at the now defunct NEXT newspapers and its online arm, www.234next.com, suddenly disappeared from the web. When the newspaper folded, the articles were no longer available online for people who needed to access them. I also couldn’t do so whenever I wanted to reference them and that became a concern for me. I did not want a situation where the articles will forever be lost, like ashes in a whirlwind. So I decided to repackage them, because there are many roads that lead to a farm. There is also the tradition of writers harnessing their columns into a book; it’s like bringing all your stuff under one roof. Dave Barry, the American humor columnist, has so many books based on his syndicated column; Ken Saro-Wiwa did it with his Simila articles that appeared in the old Daily Times, and many others. It was also a way of catering to my avid readers and loyal fans who kept asking about Excuse Me!

SU: You are also a fine artist, and once described yourself as a figurative-abstractionist. What does that mean and why do you hate taming your style?
VICTOR EHIKHAMENOR: It means I am most likely not just going to drop a two centimetre dot on a large canvas or weave a large bogus narrative around a dot. When you look at my painting, you will see figures, some recognizable, some not. My works are a menagerie of different things, a representative magical realism, if you wish to call it that. I work in a way that you discover something new about it every day. Why I hate taming my style is because as a people, we enjoy the robustness of a story and I paint with so much zeal, like a frenzied story teller. My paintings are a story - folktales, myths, mystery, history and many more. And those themes don’t lend themselves to timidity or tameness. When a strong idea hits me hard, I respond with the same velocity and go haywire on canvas, paper or any available plain surface with a child-like exuberance.

SU: Why did you leave USA for Nigeria?
VICTOR EHIKHAMENOR: Multiple reasons, some serious, some funny. But there is a saying in my village that, no matter how comfortable it is a farmer should never let his rest under a shaded tree become permanent. Nigeria is home and America is house. Difference dey. As I grew older, that fleeting thought of “you are contributing one way or the other to the greatness of an already great country, while yours is going to the dogs” became rampant. I began to get very restive about the whole idea of remaining in a comfort zone. I also began to realize that Nigeria was no longer what it was when I first decided to leave. My friends who were visiting from Nigeria no longer wanted to stay back. When the opportunity came in 2008 for me to come and be the creative director for NEXT newspapers, I did not think twice. I packed my bags and left America. I have never looked back since because I am happier among my people and I feel I am contributing something to the greatness this country deserves.




SU: While writing or painting, do you take drugs, smoke marijuana or drink alcohol to fire up your creative imagination?
VICTOR EHIKHAMENOR: I was born high. I curtail my ‘highness’ and restlessness with my multiple creative endeavours. So as you can see, if I get any ‘higher’, I probably would be useless to myself and the society. Also, I would be insulting God who created me the way I am if I take substances to get creative. Let me tell you a quick true life story about marijuana: when I was growing up, most people who smoked marijuana in my village were way too high that some forgot to cut their hair, tend their farms or even live a normal life. If you like, you can call that madness. So, every now and then, your parent would point to one cool guy enjoying his spliff openly under a mango tree, with his clothes hanging from a nearby branch, and say to you, “You wan lost abi, you nor wan read book abi, ok…if you like go dey smoke morocco (marijuana) like that man”. So over the years, to keep my trousers on my waist, I knew not to experiment with marijuana or drugs. I don’t have issue with any of my creative friends who smoke marijuana to get inspiration or any reason whatsoever; it is just not my thing. 

Source

Where I work

This is a set of pictures taken around campus April - September 2012

Driveway

Driveway and bell tower

Deadwood

Same Deadwood, same day

More...

Under the orange tree

Caterpillar on snail on wall

 

Band rehearsal

The students call it Brick City (or Brixcity), and their favourite place (for the boys at least) is the sports field. I forgot to get a picture of that.

Why stop at 15? Twenty, twenty-five...minus-five...

April 1993, twenty years ago, we might have been in two rows of three in front of our JS3 classroom, with Mademoiselle Okwesa spot-testing us - short essays, le passe compose, and all we needed to finish before our JSCE in May/June.  Only six students (Elesie, Ebiaye, Bunmi Jackson, Chika Ojinna, Ronke O? or Eniola O? and me - correct me if I'm wrong) because 90% of the class chose Physical Education (of PE/French/Arabic).
We had the good teacher now (well-trained and dearly loved), a small class (which never happened except if you took Music - of Music/FineArt) so of course French period was a treasured time.
Had to review three years of schoolwork for JSCE; some of my notebooks had a nasty two-year-old-fish-smell because sardine oil had poured on them once when I tried to hide the contraband in my pigeon-hole at the back of the class. I was in boarding school, thank God, every day of my secondary school's 5 1/2 years.
Now for the holidays: My family lived in Gowon Estate, there was a nine-month-old baby.  He was the first boy, very physical - he crawled up the green-carpet stairs and propelled himself back down by galloping on his bum.  Aunt Shade took care of him, I found the baby a distraction from my studies.  He used to pick up shiny things - a cockroach, earrings, and store them in a "treasure chest" like the green wastebasket at the top of the stairs or under the seat cushion - also green.
Mum was dangerously scarily hot-tempered, I loved Jesus.  I was "a" born-again, went to Protestant service in school, I'd read Delivered From The Powers of Darkness.   I had also read Everywoman (gynaecology) which meant I could talk in class during prep when more mature girls were debating adult stuff.

1988, the twins were little.  We lived in TinCan Island Estate in an airy house (Number 28) left by the German workers.  The twins liked chasing each other round and round the house.  My aunts tried to stop one from sucking her thumb and the other from sucking her tongue.
Mrs Ogu was our class teacher and I was nicknamed Little Tosin Careless, after Little Connie Careless in our Enid Blyton reader.  I think embarrassing the child as strongly as possible was supposed to help her change.  Mum beating the crap out of me worked better.  I can't lose or forget a thing now - like I carried the same wallet for a decade before misplacing it on a bus in '08.
Ekemini and Kenechi were best friends before I arrived in their class, but I sort of adopted them, I was the third extra friend.  I wasn't good at playing, I didn't really know the games during break time and really wanted to learn and to play with passion.  Only few days I really played, not sure why.
I was probably first in class (I think it was 2nd, 1st, 1st the three terms of Primary Four - I could check this later.)  Ekemini was the Roger (Federer) then along came Rafa (Nadal) that's how I put it one day twenty years later when she (amazing heart, she's a doctor, still very beautiful) hosted me for a few hours in Abuja.  Ekemini is Pisces and Kenechi is Scorpio.  Me Taurus.  The youngest child in the class, probably.
Kenneth Egboh's big sister Ngozi made me her schooldaughter, and many of her Primary Six classmates adopted many of my classmates.  They were tall girls, man, they seemed really big.    
At home we had a sculpted wooden scorpion and a bull head pinned to the large sitting-room cabinet to represent Taurus and Scorpio.  All the six family members were one of the two signs, if you didn't count my aunt - Pisces, my uncle - Sagittarius , and house helps who probably didn't have birthdays.  Me and my dad were team Taurus beset by the dangerous scorpions.

1983 - now we're going back thirty years.  I can't say I remember anything from this time.  There was Bazooka Joe chewing gum with the comic stuff on it, but even that was probably '84.  There was the radio in pidgin English.  There was the time I had apollo (conjuctivitis) and my parents were together in a kitchen or other dark room with a lamp burning and they squeezed onions in my eyes to help me heal it.  They had to beg and cajole for me to stay still because I didn't want any painful onion juice.  There was a visit by some 'cousins' and a lot of play.  We lived in Ilaje/Yaba or so at the time and the floor was bare cement.  There was sharing a bathtub with my mum, no fear of mum at all.  (For all I know this was as late as '85.)  She says I really really loved water.  April 1983, my artist sister would have been about the size of a chicken egg. 

A foetus at ten weeks

2013 - I'm almost at the point of no-fear-of-mum again, but dreams remind me...   I'm on my laptop computer as usual, ruining my eyes.  When people ask "where do you see yourself five years from now?" - how the hell should I know? 

My Fulani raffia baskets and Hausa leather cushion

I recently bought some poster colour and a sketch book.  This is an impression I did of my my room wall on April 3rd 2013.  In real life the wall is not brightly coloured but the cushion is really lovely. 

FIve, ten, fifteen

Five years ago I had a job in Cairo.  Four days a week in the top floor of this cool suite at the very top of a business building in Dokki.  Liked ordering lunch at work, three-day weekends watching tennis, side gig modeling for this artist guy, walking around town running into flower shops and nut shops (pistachios) and museums, sampling koshary and meeting people.  Did not like the mugamma, bureaucracy in the heart of town (near Tahrir) where I had to get visa extensions, travel permissions, etc

On my wall April 9th 2008

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Five years before that April 4th 2003 I took my qualifying exams again.  This time I actually had to drill for the exam as opposed to just studying a lot around the topics.  Thanks to everyone who helped me prep; you would fail without pointed prep for this exam.  I hated having to work so hard for zero psychic reward. 
At the tests, I did a decent job maybe, at least I didn't just spend the entire hour repeating "I don't know" like the first time.  Then I sent an email invite to friends for a little get-together and went off with Sid to get stuff for a party at my apartment.  

On my wall on April 4th 2003

Had music and cartoons and drinks and nibbles and good people.  All the ingredients for a good evening of dancing.  Brought wine and cake for the colleagues the next Monday.  Crazy me insisted on being this sorta pretty, happy, clueless thing.
In two weeks, April 18th 2003 there was my favourite day of the Caltech school year - the Int'l Food Fair.  Afterwards I met this "kid" - he looked young to me - named Peter at this salsa place I agreed to go to with Corinne and the other salseros.  I would never go out, normally, except that I had just conditionally passed and felt free to waste a little time.
Salsa club night would have been a great time to get the guy I liked who had tried to "talk to me" at Lisa's birthday party where I'd had to explain that I had this thing coming up in two months which left me with no time at all and I would be free after that.  So I'm at salsa place trying to get his attention while he's running after some silly girl :) but there's this other person Peter not my type at all who tries to get my attention and he's not completely bad in fact he's a wonderful guy and we survive four months before this bird has to fly again.  Four months of fun and screw studying because I need a break.  Hard to think all this was TEN years ago. ------
Five years before that, I was in Washington DC, at the real HU. At this time guess I was fresh in America ready to work like a maniac for the A's.  If I had to take the Metro to get a haircut I took my Calculus with me and didn't just read the book like I read math nowadays, I had a pen and notebook to work out problems. 
My roommate L didn't have those worries, she painted her nails all day, this woman had pre-shower rituals and post-shower rituals and best friends and boys and shopping and events.  I thought she was such a slacker.  She thought I was such an African lol.
Biggest challenge I had was passing the 1.5 mile run at ROTC.  It seemed everybody else could manage the physical fitness tests (PFT - you know how the military love acronyms) and run.  But me, even the thought of going that many times round the track was intimidating.  My suite-mate Tara said "focus on your breathing" and suggested staircase climbing inside my building to build endurance, which was great because I could skip the cold outside which was one of key my objectives in life at the time.
So April 1998 I think I managed to do the run in only twice the fastest guy's time (yaaay!) and even if I did rubbish on the pull ups, push ups, sit ups etc. still sorta passed.  Got congratulations too, not conditions.

The 2015 elections are going to be sold, fo'sure

I live in Lagos.  My landlady can't read.  She runs a stall down the street, selling oil and some foodstuff.  She prays a lot.  I like greeting her, she prays well for me.

Today when I told her I was going to buy a newspaper, she asked me to tell her what was in it.  "What is new in the country?" she asked, but it didn't take her two minutes to lose interest.  The woman didn't know what ACN was.  She seemed to have heard of something called PDP before.  I tried to explain broom, umbrella, ... she decided to buy some akara.

If an urban woman can be so out of the loop, just imagine what policy analysis informs the votes in Zamfara State, for instance.  Our "democratic" system proceeds with no input from this woman, except for her prayers that God deliver the mekunu (proletariat) from the hands of the oppressors. 

But madam - I think inwardly - you really can't be that poor, I pay you rent, as do many others.  But it's not really money that separates the classes in contemporary culture, is it?  It's something like access, or information. 

In this scenario, we can work to deepen democracy yes.  In fact, everyone should see the need to play an active role, not wait for me to do it for you. 
But we can't take away the reality that in the short term, definitely in the coming election season, gimmicks will move votes more than any policy.