Founder of Nike Art Empire, Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye, is an award-winning artist and textile designer, who is internationally known in the arts industry. She tells ADEMOLA OLONILUA about her life, career and struggles in life

How would you rate the art industry in Nigeria today?

I would say that Nigeria has really achieved a lot as regards the art industry. Look at the younger ones, they are really promoting the industry in Nigeria and they are showcasing it to the world. For instance, look at Art X, they are bringing people from all over the world to Nigeria. Also, the Lagos State Government has tried its best in showcasing the Nigerian and African art culture. People come from all over the world to celebrate our art. The younger generation and the media have really helped us because they have helped to promote the country’s rich art heritage. Our incumbent governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, is one of our biggest promoters of art because you cannot promote art without tourism. He has provided security for tourism and brought art to the public space so I want to thank him for his support. I also thank the youth of this country as well as the media.

You were raised by your great-grandmother. What led to the death of your mother and grandmother?

It was poverty. The truth is that I do not really know what led to the death of my mother but I would say it was poverty. When I was growing up, there was no food and when we had to cook, they would put a stone in a pot that was on fire and tell us that the yam was almost ready when it was stone that was being cooked. There was nothing to eat and in order for us not to know what was happening, our parents would tell us to leave the vicinity where they were cooking to go and play with our peers. Some people actually died because of five kobo because they could not buy a brand of aspirin that was common in those days. They only had a headache and there was no way they could survive without taking medicine but they could not afford it. As for my grandmother, I think the shock of my mother’s death was what killed her. My mother was not up to 30 years old when she died and she only had two children. I was about six years old when she died while my younger brother was just two years old. My great-grandmother, who raised me lived in Jos (Plateau State) but she had to come to Kogi State to raise my younger brother and I. Without money, there was nothing you could do in our village. Apart from that, the village had no hospital, electric power supply or potable water. If you needed to visit the next village, you would walk about 10 kilometres.

Do you miss not being raised by your mother?

Yes, I do. Whenever my children provoke me, I tell them to count themselves lucky that they have a mother. I miss my mother and always wish that my mother was there when I was growing up. I had to be a mother for my younger brother while we were growing up. I raised him after my great-grandmother died.

How about your father?

My father was a musician who had to be blowing the horn and following the king wherever he went. That was how my mother was betrothed to him. My father did embroidery on agbada. It was stitched by hand in those days. He normally did that embroidery for the king and people also patronised him from all over the country. He could spend about a year to make just one agbada. My father was a very quiet farmer who had nothing and when my mother died, he could not afford to marry another wife. He died in 1999 but he never remarried because he did not have money to do so. My father also worked for the church.

One of your dreams in life was to become a doctor; looking back, do you regret the fact that there was no money to make your dream come true?

The reason I liked doctors was because they wore white clothes in those days. I wanted to also wear white clothes and look neat like the doctors. When I look back, I thank God for the wisdom that was passed down to me by my parents. I have no regrets but I have always had the desire to know how to speak fluent English which I have not really got a hold of. I dropped out of school when I was in primary six and I did not understand a lot about English before then.

Your parents were music inclined, how come you tilted towards fashion?

My parents were into music but they were also creative people and they made adire fabrics, my father did embroideries and basket weaving, he also did leather work. I went into music when I ran away from home because my father wanted to betroth me to a minister. I joined a travelling theatre and I was with them for about two years. After I left them, I started my own theatre called  Oyenike Travelling Theatre, but I co-owned it with my first husband. We worked together as one. His mother was from my village and anyone who needed our services had to consult him.

But why did you have to run from home?

Apart from facing extreme poverty, I had to use my brain. This was a man who was about 60 years old. I was only 13 years old at the time but the man had four wives already and they wanted me to be his fifth wife. I knew that they were going to treat me like a home help because I had no education or good background, so it would have been a case of poverty upon poverty. At a point, I thought that they wanted to use me for money ritual.

So how were you able to escape?

They locked me in a room and I began to bang the door. When they asked what the problem was, I told them that I needed to pee but they said I should pee in the room. I refused to do that. They opened the door and I went to the outdoor toilet we used in those days but a guard stood close so I asked him to give me some space. Immediately, he gave me some space, I ran into the bush and escaped.

How did your father feel when you ran away?

He cried and he was confused; he did not know what to do so he told his brother who was the Chief Imam of the village to help him get me back but it was too late by that time.

Did you forgive him before his death?

Yes, I did. Before my father died, he asked me to go back to the Catholic Church and that was the only way he could forgive me as well and I agreed. That was when I went back to the Catholic Church because of the love I had for my father.

How exactly did you meet your first husband?

My first husband was a musician and he was from our village. He used to come to the village and he fell in love with my adire. He said that he would love me to design the fabric for his band members and that was how we decided to work together as a team. I was about 19 years old when we got married.

What led to the divorce?

He had 15 wives and I lived there for 15 bad years. After I left him, I decided to marry into another nationality so I married a Briton. At the time, I was already in my 30s. When we got married, I was so happy that I took him to my village. I announced to them that I had brought another man to our village and it was a great achievement for me but they said that I was an ‘ashewo’ (prostitute) for marrying a white man. They downgraded me despite the fact that I was happy. They forgot that my previous husband married 15 women and I had to queue up just to get a kiss from him but I now had a husband to myself, a direct access, but they said that it was because I was not educated that I thought that way. I insisted that I had performed a great feat because it was an upgrade for me. I had four kids for my first husband, but sadly, one died. I bore the Briton two children and bore my current husband, a police commissioner, one child.

Back then, policemen and artists were never friends. I had a boss who was a white man as well and he advised me that if I married a policeman, it would help artists know why the police arrest them. At that time, as an artist, if you had beard, you would be arrested. In my first husband’s house, they came to arrest artists daily. My first husband hardly combed his hair; we called it Sege hair. The police called it panti ori (trashy hair) while the modern-day children call it ‘dreads’ (dreadlocks). There were times he would plait his hair.

Despite your fame and success, do you regret not acquiring a formal education?

Yes, I do. I know that it is up to me to acquire a formal education but a lot of those who work for me are my teachers and I always tell them to always correct me if I make a mistake and that is why my English is better now. Before, all I could say was ‘bata,’ if I wanted to refer to a drum or drummer, while I called egg ‘eggler,’ but my children and staff members have helped me improve my English.

You have one of the largest art exhibitions in West Africa, how have you been able to achieve such a feat?

The first gallery I opened was in 1967 in Kenya. Some white men came to Nigeria and noticed what I was doing. As of that time, whenever they came to visit us in Osogbo (in Osun State), all that we derived pleasure from was in having handshake with them. Once they shook our hands, we considered it as a great achievement. So this white man who was a traveller came and when he saw my work, he told me that he would love me to supply him in Kenya. I was shocked and told him that I had not travelled out of the country before and he said that all he needed was my work and that he would give me money to facilitate everything. That was how we started little by little. Eventually, I went to Kenya and I noticed that we were selling out fast so I decided to open a gallery in Nigeria.

Then I was still married to my first husband and we were 15 wives but I decided to turn my bedroom into African Shop Number 1. I put a mat on the floor to display my crafts and there were times when people who visited me stepped on my child’s faeces. Whenever we knew we would have a foreign visitor, we would hurriedly clean the whole house and whenever those we owed money heard that the white men were visiting our house, they would come and lay siege to the house in order to collect their money once our visitor had left. They knew that we would not have money unless we sold some of my works. Those that we owed money did not know that we were happy if the white men loved our works or just shook our hands.

Was there a time you wanted to quit art and face something else?

When I was growing up, I ate sand thinking it was garri. There was no food. Sometimes, I only went to school thrice a week and I spent the rest of the days working as a labourer. I would carry stone and water. To deliver a drum of water, I was paid three pence. If I had to fetch potable water for people, I would trek for about five kilometres and we used clay pots. If you broke the pot, then you were finished because it meant no more jobs. When I got to Osogbo, the suffering escalated. In short, I do not know where my suffering started from. I would go to the farm to get firewood and I would sell it for five kobo.

In 1982, I was able to get to the US but all my things got burnt. I went with two of my husband’s wives and one of my first husband’s students. When that happened, I informed them that I was going home and I went to the Nigerian Embassy, where they lent me money to return to Nigeria. When I arrived in Lagos, there was no money to return to Osogbo so I went to the Federal Palace Hotel to meet the Alhaji who normally changed money for us at the Bureau De Change. I was given two shillings for my transport back to Osogbo. When I got to Osogbo, I had to do some menial jobs in order to save about three thousand shillings to start work again.

How did you make your first breakthrough?

It was in 1974 when I went to the US with a group of ten artists from Africa. My work was selling for about two shillings at the museum for natural history. At the time, whenever the white men came to visit, they always fell in love with my works and there was a day a white woman asked me how she could help and I told her that it would be nice if she could export my works because I was not making much profit in Nigeria. The woman, who worked for the museum for natural history, came to Nigeria in 1970 but took some of my works there to sell in 1974. When they wanted to take 10 of us to America to teach them our craft, there was no woman and the American government wanted a woman and that was how I was included. I was even pregnant at the time. They took me to teach them weaving. As of the time, I was not even fluent in English so they had to ask for an interpreter. That was my first breakthrough because I came back to Nigeria with $50,000. The exchange rate was N2,500 to a dollar.

How did you feel when you returned with such a huge amount of money?

It was a huge amount of money and we bought the house we were living in. We rented the house for N2,000 yearly but we bought the whole house for N2,000 and that was how I got to our house at Osogbo. Due to this, I focused on the art gallery. I also learnt how art galleries were being run. When I returned from the US, I told myself that if my handiwork could take me outside Nigeria, then it could also send other people abroad.

When I returned from the US, I decided to teach many of my husband’s wives how to make adire. I also went to the streets to recruit women who were selling kola nut to empower them as well. I gathered about 20 of them and began to teach them for free. My first breakthrough was in 1974. I remember when I used to come to Lagos from Osogbo to hawk my adire fabrics and there were always white men who were interested in my products. I will advise our people to always have a focus in whatever they are doing. You should also always have a passion for whatever they are doing.

You were dealing mostly with foreigners so how were you able to break down the language barriers?

I never felt ashamed to make a mistake. When I finished primary six, all I knew about English language was, ‘go to the bush.’ Anytime I made a mistake, I was always corrected and I listened to the correction. When I got married to the Briton, he always corrected me whenever I made a mistake; I was never ashamed to make a mistake. Till date, if I make mistakes when speaking English. If someone corrects me, I am always happy and grateful to them.

Back then, polygamous homes were seen as some sort of war zone among the wives; how were you able to teach your first husband’s other wives the trade when you returned from America?

We fought one another daily and why were we doing that? It was because our husband told each of us that he loved one more than the other, but always added that we should not let the other wives know what he said. So we always kept his words a secret. When I returned from the US, I had to ask why we always fought one another and they admitted that it was because of our husband. We all felt that he belonged to us while the rest shared him with us. I had to tell them that the reason he married us was because he felt it was fun to see two women fighting over him because he was a handsome man. It was the joy he got. He knew that the more we fought one another, the less we would cooperate with each other. He even followed me to the US at a point because he felt that a white man would steal his wife from him. I would be working and he would stand, watching me. The problem we had was that we were friends whenever he was not around but the instant he came back, we became our enemies.

Later on, we saw ourselves as sisters and questioned why we always fought one another. The day we wanted to fight him, I was made the leader of the squad and he beat me up but the other wives ran back. After that incident, I refused to be the leader of the pack. It was at that point that I leaked the secret that my first husband just loved us fighting each other. I was the one who advised the others that we did not need to fight among ourselves anymore but take one another as sisters instead. I promised to teach them how to make money from hard work because that was what would give us independence.

Out of the 14 wives that you taught, how many succeeded in this craft?

When we left my first husband, he married another batch of seven wives. I would say that the 15 of us were able to have our own houses; some have more than one house. Some of the wives married other men after they left him while others refused to remarry.

When I left him, the others followed me and we lived in one house until each one of us found her footing and started travelling abroad.

How easy was it for you to raise children while building your business?

It was not easy.  While I was pregnant, I would carry a baby on my back. And on my head, I hawked 60 kilos of adire in cold weather. Textile is very heavy. It was very difficult but that was how I struggled to train my children through the university.

Despite the fact that you did not have a formal education, how were you able to create a business empire?

Some market women make more money than their husbands. What I did was to always put my profits into my business, I took risks. When I wanted to build my gallery in Lagos, I had a house in Osogbo and another in Ogidi, Kogi State. I bought this land for about N1.4m in 1996 and I used the land to borrow money from the bank to build it. When I went to meet former President Olusegun Obasanjo that I wanted to build an art gallery and asked him to give me money, he told me that I did not have collateral. I did not even know the meaning of the word – collateral. In fact, he was the person that let me know that I had to give the bank something in order to get money from them. When I told him that I did not have collateral, he asked if I owned a house and I told him yes. I knew Obasanjo because he used to buy things from me in the US anytime he travelled. There was a time we were together in Canada. That was how he told me that once I could get collateral he would invite the bank to borrow me money. True to his word, he invited a bank to loan us money but it was not that bank that gave us the loan. In 2006, our economy was booming and they said that they could borrow small-scale enterprises money. I approached some of my Caucasian friends to invest in my business and promised them that they would make their money back. They listened and the rest is history today.

Would you say that love has been fair to you?

Love is about give-and-take but I would say I do not really know what love is because all my life has been about work without rest. At my age, I still cook for my husband every day. I wake up at 5am daily to cook for my husband. I would also cook his lunch as well. He does not like his food to be prepared by our home help.

How did you meet your current husband?

He was the first commissioner of police in Osogbo and as I said earlier, artists do not like policemen and vice versa. One day, the manager in my art gallery told me that a police commissioner came to visit, bought a tablecloth and also requested to see me. I was frightened and thought he wanted to arrest me so I ran to the US. When I returned, I was with a friend and I was told once again that the police officer wanted to see me, so my friend advised that we should pay him a visit. When we went to see him, he said that he loved adire and his mother used to make and wear the adire fabric. He later told us that he was an iron sculptor and he was an art lover. Immediately, my friend said that he was the right man for me. At that time, my British husband and I had just separated because he said that he wanted to return to his country after retirement. I tried my best to persuade him and asked him to be my manager and English teacher, but he insisted that he wanted to return to his country because retirement in Nigeria was ‘suffer head’ (would bring suffering). He worked for Costain International.

Did you ever believe that promoting the African culture would make you this successful in life?

No, I did not so, but I remember that I used to visit Susanne Wenger, the late Iya Osogbo, and always told her that I would love to be like her. She looked at my works and told me that I was already a professional. She said that she came from Austria to learn how to do adire and that I should focus on what I could do and do it well. She said that anything that had to do with culture would get me to the top in future. She advised me to do whatever I knew how to do to the best of my ability and that I did not need to worry because I would be greater than her someday. She took me as her adopted daughter and said that if I needed any advice, I should come to her. When I married a white man, he was happy to meet her and mama also liked him as well.

Is there a reason why you like your hair cut low?

When the Afro hair was in vogue in the early 80s, I remember that I went to a salon and when I put my head under a hairdryer, I fainted. I realised that in a bid to live a better life, I was subjecting myself to something that did not suit me. Whenever I plaited my hair, I would be crying. My husband loves it when a woman wears her hair in braids but I told him to take me for who I am because it is not convenient for me. When I cut my hair, I do not worry about anything, I could work from morning to evening. All I need do is pour water on it.