Ebiware Okiy celebrates Benin Kingdom’s Igue festival with focal lens

Igue festival

Okiy

Ebiware Dotimi Okiy is one of the five men from different states in Niger Delta that recently held exhibition (Circus of Encounter) in Lagos.

He is based in Benin, Edo State, where he captures cultural festivals and activities of Benin Kingdom. Some of his pictures displayed here are taken from Igue festival and regal dance performance in the palace square.

 Igue appears to be the most important festival in Benin Kingdom. He unveiled Oba of Benin, Omo n’Oba n’Edo Uku Akpolopkolo, Oba Erediauwa, CFR, in his regalia. Okiy’s portrait of Oba showed the Oba in his splendid all-red royal regalia. It is part of his extensive work on the Oba in court and during important annual traditional cultural festivals.

He said: “Personally, I don’t know whether he is aware that I am promoting Igue festival but some of my works are in his palace and they are used for the advertisement of Igue festival.”

Igue festival, according to Ademola Iyi-eweka, Ph.D, ushers in the New Year for every Edo-speaking man before the incursion of the white man.

It would be recalled that Oba Ovonramwen was celebrating in 1897 when the acting Consul-General, James Philips, insisted on visiting the palace after Oba (King) sent a message to him that tradition debarred him from receiving visitors during the festival and asked for a two months postponement which he later reduced to two days.

Tobenna Okwuosa, a visual artist and lecturer at the Department of Fine, Industrial and Theatre Arts, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa recalled: “By 1896, the British had nearly consolidated their control over trade in the Niger Delta but Oba then stood in the way. First, Ralph Moor, the newly appointed Consul-General, and then James Phillips acting while Moor was on leave pressed the Foreign Office for an expeditionary force to –In Phillips words: “Destool the fetish-priest.” “He (Phillips) informed the Foreign Office that he had a “Sufficient armed force, consisting of 250 troops, many powder guns, one maxim and one rocket apparatus and so on.”

This postscript was appended: “I would add that I have reasons to hope that sufficient ivory may be found in his house to pay the expense in removing the king from his stool.”

Phillips left for Benin with nine white men and 240 natives but only two white men survived the ambush by Benin soldiers in Ugbine. And a few weeks later about 1,200 British soldiers with hundreds of African auxiliary soldiers and thousands of African porter overran Benin with most of the 130,000 Oba’s soldiers dead and the Oba dethroned and exiled. The palace was looted of all its art treasures and the city set ablaze. This is the tragedy which Igue festival covertly acts as a reminder.”

Tam Fiofori, a photo journalist in Lagos noted that, “It is very instructive to note that the Obas of Benin have become the most consistently photographed royalty and celebrity in the history of indigenous photography in Nigeria. Back in 1897 Jonathan Adagogo Green photographed Oba Ovonramwen in Bonny on his way to exile in Calabar. These photographs were published in prestigious European newspapers and magazines like The London Illustrated. Ovonramwen’s grandson Oba Akenzua I1 was as from his coronation in 1932 extensively photographed by Alonge (the court photographer) including Queen Elizabeth 11’s visit in the 1950s to Benin City to meet Oba Akenzua. I (A Benin Coronation: Oba Erediauwa) and many others photographed the coronation ceremonies of Akenzua’s son Oba Erediauwa in 1979 and, since then the photographic pilgrimage has continued by streams of Nigerian photographers who yearly go to Benin City to photograph the Oba and his activities.”

Okiy is a graduate of Bachelor of Science (Economics) from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, Osun State.

He ventured into photography after he completed his degree studies under the tutelage of one of Nigeria’s prominent photographer, Don Barber in Lagos.

After a comprehensive course in the art of nature and studio photography in 2006, he started documentary photography which has been a passion and assignment for him. He is married with two children.

Okiy has held many exhibitions including: “A Day in Time, 2009.” 10^th Biennial of African Contemporary Arts, Dakar, Senegal, 2010, 3^rd International Art Expo, Lagos, 2010, Niger Delta Fototales 2010, Port Harcourt, Reconstruction in Reverse, Lagos, 2010 and Colture in Motion, Benin, 2010.