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Cartooning in Nigeria: Large Canvas, Little Movement

Oyin Medubi

Doubtless, cartooning as an art form and sociocultural expression remains a valid means of collating a people's life experiences, as well as engineering for them an acceptable social mode through constructive criticisms and applause. Yet, this subject has suffered undue neglect among social scientists and other scholars. This shortcoming is even more apparent in Nigeria where cartoons are granted, at best, no more than a grudging appreciation and, at worst, indifference. The result is a slow, emergent consciousness regarding cartoons in the psyche of the populace, and hence, a sad paucity of scholarly documentation on the subject in the country. Against the backdrop of the history of the print media in Nigeria, the above reflection is cause for concern indeed. The first newspaper, lwe irohin Fun Awon Egba Ati Yoruba appeared in 1859, and since then, many other newspapers have been established, with many dying and many others surviving. At the moment, though, Nigeria parades quite an appreciable number of national newspapers whose coverage and market reach are spread across the nation. They include: The Daily Times, National Concord, Vanguard, The Nigerian Tribune, The Punch, The Guardian, The

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New Nigerian, The Comet, This Day, The Anchor, Post Express, and so on. Many states of the federation at one time or the other had felt compelled to venture into media management and caused titles like The Observer, The Sketch, The Chronicle, The Nigerian Herald, Nigerian Tide, and so on, to be published. Some of them are no longer in circulation. Thus, the Nigerian scene had seen, and still experiences, quite a vibrant media field involved in the national life from the beginning. From being posited against colonial occupation and fighting relentlessly for independence in the 1940s and 1950s, the media in Nigeria grew to take on the military occupation forces of the land and fought them to the ground from the 1970s through to 2000. In all these nationalistic endeavors, Nigerian cartoons have been as involved in the struggles as any other segment of the media. What then accounts for the sad state of cartoons in Nigeria today? Perhaps, some of the answers can be gleaned by considering the history of cartoons. THE HISTORY OF CARTOONS IN NIGERIA Nigeria, a West African sub-regional country, has a population of over one hundred million people and a past history of colonial rule under the British Government. In 1960, independence from Britain was gained, but a lasting influence of this epoch has been the retention of the English language as the country's lingua franca. It is also the language of media communication and necessarily the language of cartoons. To the large Nigerian society, therefore, cartoons are no more to be divorced from, or trusted than, the colonialists who introduced them. Cartooning in Nigeria can be traced to 1944 when Nnamdi Azikiwe's West African Pilot engaged the services of Akinola Lasekan (1916-72), essentially a commercial artist and painter known as "LASH," to draw editorial cartoons. His vitriolic attacks on the then-colonial government often attracted the attention, fury, and censorship of that government, which, many times, threw him into jail. As Nigeria's first cartoonist Lasekan set the tone of radicalism that those who came after him were to emulate. Indeed, so deep was his impact, as this researcher was informed, that his children followed in his footsteps. One of his sons was said to have drawn, in the 1970s and 1980s, the now discontinued "Benbella" for The Daily Times."* Other newspapers followed the cartoon prints of the West African Pilot by engaging the services of artists to illustrate editorials or submit materials for editorial cartoons. However, The Daily Times, under Babatunde Jose, the doyen of journalism in Nigeria, took cartooning to a greater height when it built a stable of gifted and talented artists, such as Dele Jegede, Josy Ajiboye, and David Akande, who studied commercial art under Lasekan. Ogundeji (1996:12), a cartoon historian, records that: About three decades ago, cartooning was not popular as it was limited to papers whose publishers were aware of its joys in foreign countries. Few cartoons were actually drawing mirth when Ajiboye joined the Daily Times Newspapers as a cartoonist in 1971. Fewer still were illuminating. Anyway, there were only a few newspapers and they were largely given to amplifying the views of their politicianfinanciers. "Cartoonists were just ruining their employers' political enemies, coming out mostly in the heat of the political crisis," Ajiboye recollects. Fig. 9.1. "Josy Ajiboye on

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Sunday," Josy Ajiboye, 1975. Along with the crop of Times cartoonists, Ajiboye injected a great deal of satiric humor, and hence life, into cartooning. To him especially is Nigeria indebted for the elevation of cartooning to the status of art. His irreverent humor and sharp satirical wit helped him to successfully conceptualize what he considered to be the ludicrous traits and behavior patterns of Nigerians. Over the decades, there have been shifts in the use and focus of cartoons by both editors/publishers and cartoonists themselves, who more and more are coming to full realization of the potency of the cartoon as a means of social expression and reconstruction. Such uses have included the didactic by which the amorality of the early, postindependence oil-boom era of the 1970s was condemned and new morals advocated. Ogundeji (1996:12) further states that:
The 70s, which provided ideas for these early cartoons, were years of affluence. The Oi! Boom affluence put money in people's pockets, encouraged consumerism, created hedonists everywhere and stimulated libido. Men with heavy paunches in bell-bottomed trousers, high-heeled shoes and vast ties, swilled beer endlessly, got into trouble, made scenes, wallowed in debt, engaged in illicit sex affairs and generally raised hell. Women wore mini dresses, wigs, platform shoes. Basking in a new-found independence and often playing women libbers, they got unwanted pregnancies, embraced prostitution more

and gave themselves up to the mood of the time, indeed, Nigerians started developing morals of an alley cat. Ajiboye aptly captures the follies and foibles of the era, its hopes and fears in his social and political cartoons, many of which came under two popular strips, "Romance of Life" and "Josy Ajiboye on Sunday".. . In this crusade of social reformation, Ajiboye was accompanied by Dele Jegede. Since the 1970s and into the 1980s, the focus of cartoons had been readjusted to deal more forcefully with higher and deeper emergencies in the form of sociopolitical and economic upheavals emerging from the posi-oil boom blues. At the vanguard of this political renaissance were pencil warriors such as Kenny Adamson (The Punch),2 Bisi Ogunbadejo and Ebun Aleshinloye (The Guardian), and Lawrence Akapa (Vanguard). These cartoonists found themselves picking up the gauntlet, on behalf of the "common man," to fight for a just system where the state resources and opportunities would be equitably distributed. It is pertinent to note that cartoonists are still engaged in this war in today's Nigeria. Using mainly the one-panel exposition, most newspapers' editorial cartoons managed to express their meanings, discontent, and intentions. But not so The Guardian. Rising from a litany of irritating verbal harass-ments and subtle, indirect innuendos meant to intimidate the various governments, The Guardian artists, led by Ogunbadejo in the early

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1980s, fashioned and designed the "conversational cartoon" for the paper. In this typology, characters are merely representative types, symbolic of living figures often in high places, around whom stories are built. Using copious dialogue and lifelike characters, the plot is developed to a denouement where the punch line and message are given. This indirect style of exposition often involves two or more panels and is not only extant, but is adopted and defended by the current crop of Guardian artists (O.B. Olaseinde [Obe Ess], D.D. Onu, etc.) and those of other newsmagazines such as Tell and Newswatch. More cartoonists have since joined the fray: Moses Ebong, art editor of The Punch, well known for his characters "Megida" and "Omoba"

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who stand for "Everyman" (Abati, 2000); Aliu Eroje, Akin Onipede, K.C. Okoronkwo, Bennett Omeke, all of The Punch; D. D. (Didi) Onu and Bunmi Oloruntoba of The Guardian; Adewole Adenle (Post Express); Laobis Obilonu and Nath Ngerem (Vanguard); and many more. Such is the public awareness of the seeming power of the editorial cartoon that, at the moment, few of the major national and state newspapers would conceive of going to press without one cartoon. Essentially, the focus of these cartoons is the extermination of all political and social evil and judicial errors deemed injurious to the common man, as well as fashioning an acceptable social system for the benefit of the average Nigerian. Herein lies the relevance bestowed on cartoons. Naturally, in the course of this task, and the growing consciousness of the place of cartoons among members of the society and cartoonists themselves, many problems are encountered. THE CARTOON STRIP The cartoon strip has had a somewhat more inauspicious history in Nigeria than the editorial cartoonits relevance and attraction being much less obvious to the Nigerian editors, as well as readers. The earliest known cartoon strips in Nigeria were the syndicated American and British ones, which ranged from "Garth" in The Daily Times to "Modesty Blaise" in The New Nigerian and "Andy Capp" in The Tribune. The first

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indigenous strips were "Kole the Menace" and "Little Joe" drawn by Dele Jegede and Josy Ajiboye, respectively, in the 1970s and published in the pages of The Daily Times. These were preoccupied with detailing the activities of two rascally little boys whose penchants for trouble-making earned them sufficient punishment as to serve as lessons to other children. The strips soon petered out to be replaced by others in other newspapers, some of which are listed below. At that time, the trend was to publish foreign strips alongside the indigenous ones, as "Garth" and "Modesty" ran on into the 1980s. Vanguard, published by Sam Amuka, a great connoisseur of art and cartoons, gave free reign to cartoon development in his paper by leading the field with a full page of strips drawn by both in-house and freelance artists. Hence, from the 1980s on, Vanguard has, at one time or another, paraded such vibrant strips as Fayemi's "Terror Muda" and the now discontinued "Emulewu" (which in Yoruba carries the double meaning of "Drinking is dangerous" and "Drink is my clothing"). Both strips centered around local heroes who liked to live dangerously, and in their adventures, expose and fight social evil, which often carne in the form of ritual killers, corruption, cheating, and so on. Akman's "Kaptain Africa" is a Ghanaian strip featuring an imitation of the American superhero, complete with mask, and engaged also in the fight against evil. Abejide's "Cheeks and Company" details mostly the activities and thought processes of a precocious child in the classroom; "Virginia" tells of the Nigerian woman caught up in city life, and is drawn by Nigeria's only female cartoonist-cum-illustrator, Ronke Adesanya, a freelancer. The Punch introduced its own leisure page in 1990 and ran panels such as "Nuts" by Kaycee, "Bark and Bite" by Cheche Egbune, "Efe and Jude" by Bennett Omeke, "Megida" by Moses Ebong, and so on. Most of these strips depict issues of modern life more cogently with conflicts of self-interest versus societal norms and expectations. Kaycee's "Nuts" is a depiction of a teenager's tendency for robust and uncensored self-indulgence in sexual exploits, and Omeke's "Efe and Jude" is an investigation

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of marital situations where traditional roles are reversed. "Megida" by Ebong, appearing quite often on one of the inside pages of the paper, provides the cartoonist the opportunity of viewing the Nigerian situation and society through the pained and helpless eyes of an average member of the Nigerian masses, regarded by Abati as "Everyman." Daily, the paper exhibits between eight to ten different strips of three to four panels all on different themes. Attempts have been made over the years, with varying degrees of success, to develop some of the published cartoon strips into magazines. However, the earliest known Nigerian cartoon magazines were Feyikogbon (Learn from This), with a purely didactic bent that necessarily imbued it with a moralistic tone, and Aworerin (Look and Laugh), a purely cartoon magazine, both published in the 1950s. In the early 1980s, "Mr and Mrs," a Vanguard gag cartoon on marriage, was developed into a magazine but did not last long on the stands. Worse was the fate that befell QR-Extra, Nigeria's Magazine of Wit and Political Satire; it saw only one edition in 1999. By far the most successful Nigerian cartoon magazine has been Ikebe Super which began in the 1980s and ran on into the 1990s. Ikebe (a pidgin nickname for the generous endowment of a lady's derriere) centered on the seamy and sex-related sides of Nigerian life as seen by its publisher who was at first its sole artist, Wale Adenuga. A University of Ife, Nigeria, graduate, Adenuga condensed into his magazine a potpourri of humor, entertainment and didactism that offered something to everyone in the family: from the antics of "Papa Ajasco," the irresponsible playboy family man, to "Boy Alinco," his naughty son who gave every promise of following in his footsteps, to "Miss Pepeye" (Miss Duck), whose blind aping of foreign fashions exposed her to Adenuga's caustic satire. From his stables also came Love Story, a cartoon magazine that painstakingly delved into the Nigerian sociological considerations of love and marriage with all the attendant suspicions and superstitions of both families, as marriage in Nigeria is seldom a one-to-one affair. Binta, a children's cartoon magazine, also tried to investigate issues relating to children's welfare, especially within the family setting. The seriousness with which these issues were examined perhaps robbed the magazine of its "cartoon" nature, catapulting it into the arena of illustrations.

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Unhappily though, all of these are defunct, their demise coming in the wake of the 1993 political crisis that plunged the nation into chaos and confusion. During this time, the economic fortunes of many ventures took the downward plunge, these magazines included. The sales figure of Ikebe dropped from 160,000 to less than 20,000 with the financial returns dropping cornmensurately. However, from the ashes of these efforts has risen a television sitcom titled "Papa Ajasco," in which the irresponsible acts and sexual escapades of this quintessential Nigerian male continue to be chronicled. It, too, is produced by Wale Adenuga. GAG CARTOONS The gag cartoon typology, like its comic counterpart, is relatively undeveloped in the country. It is represented by the pocket cartoon that some newspapers feel obliged to feature for one reason or the other. One of the most notable and longest running cartoons of this genre is The Punch's "Omoba" (Prince) drawn by Moses Ebong, and earlier by Tayo Fatunla before his migration to England in the early 1980s. The Punch also features "Rasta," by Omeke, a wry comment on the speech patterns and lifestyle of Rastafarians. Vanguard's "Mr. and Mrs." has also been a notable example featuring the travails and trials, senses and insensibilities of married couples. As mentioned earlier, this front page pocket cartoon drawn by Lawrence Akapa in the 1980s, but now drawn by other artists in the Vanguard, metamorphosed into a magazine that soon died. In addition to "Mr and Mrs," Vanguard also features "Pocket Cartoon," which provides wry commentaries on social and political events. On the whole, gag cartoons are at the moment mainly illustrations of opinions and thoughts of the artist and serve as running commentaries on social events. All told, this historical survey of cartoons in Nigeria exposes some inherent facts: that the cartoon industry here is still in a state of flux. But do these constant fluctuations in the rise and fall of cartoons represent progress or a deep-

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er underlying problem? We shall determine this presently when we come to consider the status and problems of cartooning in Nigeria. First, we shall briefly consider the issues that concern Nigerian cartoonists. ISSUES IN NIGERIAN CARTOONS Most cartoonists agree on one point: that is, that the cartoonist is engaged in the battle of building a better society. In this regard, the Nigerian cartoonist sees himself as having a responsibility to fight, "on behalf of others who do not have the same opportunity." Armed with this inviolate right, the cartoonist attacks with vigor what he perceives to be societal ills as well as their perpetrators. As such, he may be seen as constantly warring and inveighing against a system that condones wrongdoing, ineptness, infrastructureal decay and inefficiency, political thuggery, corruption in high places, state terrorism, abuse of power, individual recklessness and irresponsibility, as well as societal evil. Hence, he is a social critic cum crusader. Right from the colonial period when cartoons were introduced, cartoonists' focus has been social justice and political freedom. Even during the long military regimes, this focus did not shift. Indeed, cartoonists are beginning to move forward from a befuddled rear to the forefront, alongside political and civil activists, to demand this social justice, to the irritation of the rulers, one of whom was a past head of statethe late Gen. Tunde Idiagbon who once demanded not to be featured in cartoons. And in 1993, when the election of the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola on June 12 as the country's president in a "free and fair" election was annulled by the then ruling military government, Nigerian cartoonists

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denunciations rang loud and clear in many satiric pieces. Such fidelity and purity of purpose has been possible for cartoonists because, according to Onu, a Guardian cartoonist, they see, themselves as higher priests and guardians of the people's thoughts, rights, positions, and privileges: "The cartoonist uses space to speak for the people who don't have the same opportunity. He therefore holds the space in trust on behalf of those lot of people who hold the same view" (Onu, interview, 2000, Lagos, Nigeria). In that guise, the cartoonist can be said to identify with the common man. He empathizes with him, suffers with him, and shares his frustrations. He is one and the same with the common man. The economic status of the cartoonist is further confirmation of this, anyway. PRESENT STATE OF NIGERIAN CARTOONS In the words of one of the foremost cartoonists in Nigeria, Dele Jegede, reported by Anikulapo and Uhakhene (1999: 8), the Nigerian cartoonist "... has been elusive, given the political culture of the country. He has been going underground. In a state of anomie, the cartoonist is a ventriloquist." This statement, perhaps, captures the present state of development of cartoons against a backdrop of the expectations of a knowing appraiser. This means that Nigerian cartoonists are simply not doing enough. The voice of the cartoonists, which in the 1970s and 1980s rang stridently loud and clear, is today little more than a whimper. The hitherto vibrant culture of criticism, characterized by a sharp wit and sharper artistic delineation, is somewhat blurred. From the above summation of the history of the art form, there would appear to be issuing forth a buzzing drone of illusory activities from the nation's art room. Yet, not much has been achieved. Editorial cartoons of mostly one panel are often rotated among several cartoonists in a newspaper. Therefore, stylistic development in each cartoonist is expectedly slow, and some find themselves mere illustrators of news items in the name of cartooning. Indeed, some editorial cartoons are so flat and puerile as to be irritating. And the number of such examples is growing to an alarming level. Pictures are often not funny and captions are even less so, generally lacking wit. In spite of these developments, however, most cartoonists interviewed for this report believe that cartoons are better now than they were some ten to fifteen years ago. Okoronkwo who draws the quite popular comic strip "Nuts" in The Punch, asserts in an oral interview that the status of Nigerian cartoons is higher today than it was before, and it will get even better, as the present generation of cartoonists is

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working for the future generation by enduring hardships in order to forge a place for those corning after (Okoronkwo, interview, 2000, Lagos, Nigeria). However, he believes, cartoonists need to create more awareness in the market so that they can live on their cartooning, unlike now when they must supplement their income with painting and other expressions of art. He also thinks that changes are already coming, pointing to such developments as corporate bodies sponsoring cartoon publications, referring to Obong's published collections, which were sponsored by R. T. Briscoe (Nig). In addition, cartoons are now used for advertisement purposes in Nigeria, especially in newspapers. Eroje, another Punch cartoonist, agrees in another oral interview that cartoons are in a more favorable state now than before but laments that editors are the bane of cartoon development in the country. Some editors, he says, consider cartoonists to be "less than reporters," showing them very little respect, and in some cases, newspapers do not have staff cartoonists, depending instead, on freelance labor. Although there are not many instances of this, since most Nigerian newspapers have at least three inhouse cartoonists, nevertheless, freelance labor is often employed. In addition, states Eroje, most newspaper organizations do not offer cartoonists suitable office accommodation. Sometimes, they are squeezed into corridors. He therefore concludes that cartoonists have to fight for the respect they deserve for the sake of the coming generations (Eroje, interview, 2000, Lagos, Nigeria). Even more galling is the fact that cartoonists in Nigeria are not as well paid as their art would require. A newly employed cartoonist earns between 15,000 and 22,000 Naira (about US$ 100 to 150), whereas some of the highest paid earn between 40,000 and 50,000 Naira (about US$ 300 to 350) monthly. Although these figures are in consonance with the earnings of their counterparts in the public service cadres, they are rather puny when compared with their labor input. In another oral interview, Oloruntoba (interview, 2000, Lagos, Nigeria) of The Guardian sees the present level of cartoon development in Nigeria as a reflection of the level of awareness of the reading public. And the Nigerian public "does not yet know its own identity." He believes that cartoon appreciation has to be built and, to do that, "an impetus is needed in the form of investors." Money, he says, must be pumped into cartoons and comics by sponsors to raise the level of awareness. Onu, also of The Guardian, believes the cartoon's level is growing. "After all, each period has its own level (of expectations) and mark (of development)" (interview, 2000). He is of the opinion that there is more art development in this period than any pervious one. From feedback reaching him, he surmises that most newspaper buyers go straight to the

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cartoon page before reading the rest of the paper. What probably affects the status of cartooning, according to Onu, is the reading culture of Nigerians, which is poorpeople only go to school to pass examinations (interview, 2000). In the opinion of Seinde Obe, better known as Obe Ess, The Guardian cartoon editor, the style favored by The Guardian artists has lifted cartoon art from the level of caricature to the level of wit, achieved through thought-provoking conversational innuendoes and play on words, even though the characters are taken from real life. He agrees, though, that much still needs to be done, as many of the past cartooning masters have been forced to leave the profession or the country for economic reasons, citing Dotun Gboyega (who is now in the United States), Osazua Osagwe, Dele Jegede (now an art professor in the United States), Boye Gbenro, Bisi Ogunbadejo (now a sculptor in England), Tayo Fatunla and many others, most of whom are abroad (Obe, interview, 2000, Lagos, Nigeria). Obe, regarded as something of an icon in the industry, maintains, though, that the only supplement to his salary as a cartoonist for The Guardian is derived from proceeds coming from the use of cartoons in advertisements for UNICEF, Chevron, and Duduosun, among other clients. His satisfaction, he says, comes from knowing that he makes readers happy and in spite of the level of development, he would rather be doing nothing else, as cartooning is, for him, a calling from God (Obe, interview, 2000). Ngerem, at the Vanguard, opines that what is wrong with cartooning is the low level of art appreciation in Nigeria. The cartoonist, to him, is the society's watchdog, using his brush as a weapon against abuse of power and working to "bring government to the people" (Ngerem, interview, 2000, Lagos, Nigeria), Yet, he is not appreciated, even though he often has to "work out his blood" (work extremely hard) to produce anything worthwhile. And even at this level, he maintains, parents still discourage their children from studying art. From the above reactions gained from a cross-section of working cartoonists at some of the nation's most popular newspapers, we can assert that the El Dorado for Nigerian cartoons is still many cities away. In all probability, the fact that not a single institution in Nigeria offers cartooning as a subject of

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study, despite the country boasting of many art departments in its higher education institutions, contributes to its unutterably slow development. However, if one fact stands out clearly, it is that Nigerian cartoonists have not sculpted out an identity germane to Nigerian life. Most often, cartoonists concentrate on the urban scene for their sources and inspiration, completely ignoring and neglecting rural dwellers, who constitute the larger majority. Erroneously, these rustics are often represented by tine cognomen "common man," again ignoring their many other rich characteristics that may help the cartoonist, as well as the society at large, to determine what or who is the average Nigerian. At the moment, the cartoonist's average Nigerian is an impoverished city dweller, living and suffering on the fringes of an inefficient social system, victimized and brutalized by governmental insufficiencies, inefficiencies, and ineptitude. Stylistically, too, cartoonists have yet to fashion a Nigerian cartoon style, recognizable in its felicity to form and content. Straightforward caricature is still the order, with The Guardian's conversational style forming a slight variation. Deep-level barbs, in which wit and satire are deftly combined, are rare indeed. It is important to note, however, that the cartoon industry in Nigeria is not at a standstill, and this takes us back to the point made earlier about the buzzing drone distinct in the nation's art cauldron. From this cauldron has yet to emerge the essential Nigerian cartoon, both in form and content. We can therefore conclude that on the cartoon canvas of the Nigerian artfield there is a great deal of movement, but beneath it, there would appear to be little progress. The reasons for this sad state are set out below. PROBLEMS CONFRONTING CARTOONISTS IN NIGERIA The major, and the most difficult, intractable problem confronting cartoonists in Nigeria is that there is little appreciation of cartoons as a legitimate art form, for the simple reason that it is not part of the Nigerian culture. Even in the southwestern part, which is said to be more educationally advanced than the rest of the country and where art expression has

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gained some foothold, cartoon education does not form part of this development. Unlike the situation in the Western world and Japan, where cartoons are a very important cultural expression, for the people in Nigeria, they are regarded as "alien," imported and foreign culture" (Oloruntoba, interview, 2000, Lagos, Nigeria). At worst they constitute the indulgence of the jobless and unserious among the elite, and at best the craving of "children." Therefore, both the market and appreciation for cartoons must be built. Onu, however, sees a darker picture: Reading is not part of the Nigerian habit, confirming the generally held notion that Nigeria has no reading culture. Okoronkwo, although agreeing with Onu, believes that "people have to be made to know about a product," and Nigerians do not seem to be sufficiently aware of the existence of cartoons. The picture is not irredeemable, he thinks, as he hopes "the awareness will grow slowly" so that "many (potential) cartoonists out there will be attracted to the profession" (Okoronkwo, interview, 2000). Sometimes, though, awareness of a product does not guarantee purchase. In the case of the average Nigerian, purchasing power has been seriously reduced by an equally seriously bastardized and ruined economy. Consequently, many a previous "newspaper buyer" has been reduced to a "free reader" of someone else's copy, but more frequently a "renter" who pays a vendor a miniscule fraction of the cost of the paper to read it without purchasing it. Hence, circulation figures of most newspapers have dropped drastically. The two highest selling papers in the 1970s and 1980s, Daily Times and The New Nigerian, each had a circulation figure of about 500,000. Today, however, the best-selling newspaper, The Punch, sells just about 40,000 daily. This translates to reduced income for newspapers and less money to pay the cartoonist. As such, the editor's priority is most certainly not cartoon space but

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advertising space, which constitutes a more direct source of revenue. Few Nigerian editors, if any, believe that cartoons can help raise the circulation figures of their newspapers. Indeed, cartoons have often been readily sacrificed for advertisements or long editorials. More often, the cartoonist finds himself battling against the editor's cartoon illiteracy. Most editors, laments Eroje, do not respect cartoonists, nor do they have any regard for any specialty they may hold, because they believe that anyone who can draw can be a cartoonist. To most editors, the cartoonist is "less than a reporter." Hence some newspapers do not have cartoonists, and where they are present, they are last to be hired, last to be accommodated, and often put in "corridors and box-rooms" from where they are expected to "create something out of nothing" (Eroje, interview, 2000). Sometimes, the cartoonist's creative effort is blatantly edited by fastidious editors who consider such interference a droit de seigneur. Such a demanding condition has effectively discouraged Nigerian females from taking up cartooning as a career. This is the view of Onyeka Adaobi, a former Vanguard female cartoonist-turned-textile designer, interviewed for this project. She sees cartooning in Nigeria as a tedious and difficult job that pays so little and demands so much. Women, she says, cannot keep up with the demands of Nigerian editors, who often ask for the impossible (Adaobi, interview, 2000, Lagos, Nigeria). Hence, Nigeria has not a single female cartoonist and only one illustrator, Ronke Adesanya, leaving the field entirely to the males. In effect, cartoonists continue to be less and less appreciated and poorly paid. Hence, most cartoonists find they need to do other things for sustenance; otherwise, they are distracted by their deprivations. An example of the poverty suffered by cartoonists is an episode recounted by Okoronkwo: Once, while riding in a "Molue" (Nigeria's most rickety public bus system) caught in a traffic-jam in Lagos, he espied someone in a chauffeur-driven, fancy new car, chuckling at a cartoon that looked suspiciously like "Nuts," his own comic strip. To ensure their own survival therefore, most cartoonists are essentially painters. As such, the attention and loyalty of all but a few of them is divided between cartooning and other forms of art expression. From the times of Lasekan to the present, cartooning has appeared to be the hobby of the so-called cartoonists who have remained essentially painters, sculptors, graphic artists, and so on, professions for which they are primarily trained. Not a single cartoonist has any formal training in cartooning, and as stated earlier, no art institution offers cartooning as a course. Thus, cartooning continues to be a by-product of artistic engagement and talents. Besides, the bane of any endeavor requiring any large readership in

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Nigeria doubtless must be the country's intractable and depressingly high level of illiteracy. Nigeria, at the last census count (1991) had a population of about one hundred million people, out of which less than 25 percent can speak, read, and write the English language. In Elugbe's words (1990:10):
Although estimates of the percentage of Nigerians able to speak English are usually of the 30 percent mark, Bamgbose (1983:5) puts the figure as low as 10. According to him, "perhaps ... 90 percent of our people in both the urban and rural areas are untouched by (the) alleged communicative role (of English)."

By this manifestly clear debacle, more than 75 percent of Nigerians are excluded from events in the media, cartoons included. This seemingly irredeemable situation further spells more reduction in revenue and hence, less economic benefits for the cartoonist. Eroje, corroborated by Ngerem, believes a larger public and wider market can be built if cartoonists adopt the usage of pidgin in their captions. Pidgin, a combination of English and indigenous languages in contact with it, clearly is more favored by the less read in the society. The argument of Eroje is based on the twin facts that pidgin is the language of wider acceptance, cutting across status and regional boundaries, and that the huge success recorded by Nigeria's most famous, though defunct, cartoon magazine Ikebe Super was credited to its usage of pidgin. Indeed, at its zenith, the sales figure pitched to an all-time-high of 160,000. In Erojes words:
Not everyone understands English. Besides, humour is more easily understood in pidgin as it cuts across ail classes and nations in Africa. ... It can elicit loud guffaws and raucous laughter which is just fitting for cartoons. .. . Pidgin catches humour more clearly than the English Language can. For example when Obasanjo (Nigeria's head of state) states "1 de kanpe," in response to threats of impeachment by the National Assembly, he transmits his sturdy self-confidence and elicits more laughter than when he merely says, I'm all right. (Eroje, interview, 2000)

Perhaps so. But the point is debatable. It is difficult to say with any clarity what accounted for the success of Ikebe Super: its preoccupation with the seamy side of male-female relationships or the accessibility of its messages couched in pidgin English to its readers, schooled and semi-schooled. To sum up, the problems confronting cartooning as a profession in

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Nigeria on the one hand may be considered no more than teething problems, as most cartoonists interviewed expressed confidence that things will improve. On the other hand, these setbacks may be adequate reflections of the socioeconomic development level of the country. It is sufficient to note, however, that Nigerians, ever so imperceptibly, slowly are realizing that laughter engendered by cartoons should not be enjoyed solely by children. The problems mentioned above been met with some equanimity by the cartoonists themselves if they were able to come together as a body in a united association. Unfortunately, efforts to unite Nigerian cartoonists under an umbrella association, CART AN, have not yielded much fruit, as mutual suspicion, inordinate individuality, and the archetypal introversion of artists have kept most of them from full commitment to the success of the association. CONCLUSION There is no doubt about the usefulness of cartoons. In the words of Abati, "Newspapers would be less entertaining if there were no cartoonists who manage to reduce the many issues that bother us to sketches of instructive light-heartedness." Besides, cartoons help to record the social history of a "perpetually transitory society" which is in a constant and "confounding flux" like ours. In Abati's words: "Cartoonists are historians; through their art they help reconstruct society's memories and build a store of light-hearted documentaries which in the future become sign posts for understanding the prevalent emotions and attitudes of a past era." And through cartoons, "Every society then must rediscover the capacity to laugh at itself" (Abati, 2000). This, perhaps, is an art that Nigeria has not fully grasped, and therein indeed, lies the reason behind the tardy growth of cartoons, and by a strange paradox, the solution to this snail-paced development.

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NOTES 1. Studying Lasekan's cartoons, Udechukwu (1979:15) said they suffered from "the use of too many words, absence of caricature, little humour and the lack of surprise not to mention the relatively mediocre draughtsmanship." By the 1960s, according to Udechukwu (1979:15), other cartoonists started working, including Chuks Anayanwu and Ore Gab Okpako. Other The Punch cartoonists of the 1970s were Femi Jolaoso, Ose Awosika, and Dotun Gboyega. The latter had a character Omoba (also the name of the comic panel), who passed witty comments on topical issues. [Probably the same "Omoba" later drawn by Tayo Fatunla and Moses Ebong.-editor] :

2.