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 What would have been a most befitting celebratory outing for photography in Nigeria never materialized in 2010; when the three 'wise' curators of the official month-long monumental 50th Anniversary Art Exhibition at the Velodrome in Abuja, for whatever reasons best known to them, failed to attract photographers to participate in this very important historical parade of Nigerian culture and arts. To give due credit though, it was a wonderful exhibition of Nigeria's great strides in contemporary creativity since independence in 1960; appropriately anchored on her world-renowned excellence in archaeological artifacts.
The lone photograph of Ben Enwonwu in-action creating his famous Queen Elizabeth 11 full sculpture inadvertently underscored the volumes of creative history as well as art photography would have lent to the otherwise good-intentioned national exhibition of such importance! Lets hope the wise curators get the right Nigerian photographers to help them produce, for posterity, a first-class exhibition catalogue.
As if to officially make amends for the exclusion of photography in the Velodrome exhibition, the National Gallery of Art in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation and, with the curatorial expertise of a former Director-General Dr Paul Dike, put on a Pictorial Exhibition-'The March of History; Evolution of the Nigerian Nation Trials and Triumphs.' The opening ceremony was chaired by former Head of State General Yakubu Gowon who advised the many young students in the audience to take a special keen interest in the visual history of Nigeria.
It was indeed a kaleidoscope of Nigeria's traditional, political and military leaders and creative heroes in arts and culture as well as great sportsmen with a dash of significant events and landmarks. This exhibition made good efforts to source archival photographs given the fact that the national photographic archives have been deliberately plundered by supposedly responsible guardians of them in the Photographic Department of the Ministry. There was a resort to improving old images by re-copying and digitizing them and the results were much better than the photographs earlier used by the Lagos branch of the National Museum in their own celebratory exhibition to commission the new Murtala Mohammed wing. In both exhibitions unfortunately, the photographs were not credited; which is very unprofessional. It was interesting and gratifying that photographs by Nigeria's first internationally-recognized artist Jonathan Adagogo Green were on display in both exhibitions.
Prior to the NGA's Pictorial Exhibition and also in Abuja between September and October 2010, Sun Arts: BEP had staged the 1979 Peep into History and Culture to celebrate Nigeria's 50th Anniversary of Independence. New York-based Professor of Pathology and innovative creative photographer and pioneer of digital photo-art Dr Alfred Fayemi had in April and May 2010 held his EkitiKete; People and Places exhibition in Ado Ekiti. His grandeur-and-history-laden images of Ekiti land showcased the cultural activities and tourism potentials of Ekiti State.
Timi Willis Amah between the 1st and 5th of October 2010, in the lobby of the Bayelsa State Government House Banquet House in Yenagoa, held a breathtaking colour exhibition Tranquil Luminous : The Charm of the Objectified Space in the Niger Delta. The photographs on exhibition were trademark Amah; costal landscapes of the Niger Delta taken during what he describes as the 'golden' hour either at sunrise or sunset with a little help from appropriate filters. Amah has become the recognized documentarist of the scenic beauty created by the natural interactions between light, water and land in the Bayelsa axis of the Niger Delta. It was no surprise that Timi Amah won the first prize in the 2010 Omoba Yemisi Shyllon Art Foundation Photography competition for Amateurs.
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