Taiwo Ajai-Lycett, OON. Know her? She has been around for a long time. A consummate theatre practitioner, educationist and media practitioner, she has graced many production sets and stages in Nigeria and beyond. She has acted along side some of the world’s best even in the United Kingdom.
In your own definition, who is a true Nigerian?
The truest Nigerians are those who help other Nigerians; those who lead other Nigerians to abundance. By that, I am not only referring to the monetary aspect, but about having a good life. It is about fulfilling their own dreams. It is also about lending a helping hand and making sure that you pull other people up.
When was the first time you travelled out of Nigeria?
I left Nigeria just before independence, more than 50 years now. The independence was to come by October, but I left just before the independence. I remember the nation was just preparing for the independence before I left.
I do not know that Nigerians travel out that much, but then you must have made your money, I guess?
Nigeria is absolutely rich. The thing is that we talked ourselves into poverty. If not, we have always been rich as a people…
So you are saying that we are what we say?
Certainly, we are what we say and think. If we think we are poor, we will continue to be poor despite that our country is immensely rich. What do you think is propelling foreigners to come here (Nigeria)? They are not coming to shake hands, but to tap from our rich resources.
Nigeria has been rich for a long time, even before the discovery of oil. We had groundnuts, we had cocoa, palm oil and others. You see, we have all these things and we have always been such a rich country. So, at that , we were going everywhere studying.
Then the colonials where still here. The dream was that we would all have an education and takeover the running of our own country from them (colonial masters).
Then every one of us had that dream, that it is possible. It was like the American dream where anybody can come from any strata of the society and know that he or she can make it to the highest office in the country.
Back in the United Kingdom, you were the editor of the African Women Magazine; what inspired you into doing that. Was it racism?
No, Africans have always been a proud people and it was not African Woman, but Africa Woman. It is a sister magazine to Africa magazine and so both Africa Magazine and Africa Woman were both addressing black and African men and women at home in the continent of Africa and in the Diaspora.
The magazine was really focused on the economic freedom, the social and political lives of Africa and the evolving of Africa. Do not forget that it has not been long we got our independence, and we are still working towards being fully ourselves and masters of our own fate.
There was a lot to discourse about how we are going to grow politically, economically and socially. Some of the issues we were discoursing then are still with us. One of them is how African are you? How confident are you as an African? In some publications, I looked at our women. A lot of our women are yellow, yellow tomatoes, by the use of bleaching crimes.
These things are happening because somehow we are buying into this nonsense that in order for a women to be beautiful she needs to have a light complexion; and our people have no idea of how they are hurting themselves apart from the fact that it is a terrible mental state for one to feel that his or her God given skin is not good enough; and you are trying to get it like that of someone else skin type.
A lot of them fail to know that the Lord has created us in this part of the world with such a perfect skin to enable us sustain the ultra-violet ray of the sun, so we have protection in our pigmentation. Now when we peel out all these; when we chemically denude our bodies with these things, we are inviting a whole lot of trouble, because the chemical and all the heavy metals that we put inside, do settle in our liver, kidney and others.
You see women with blushes on their skin and their feet swelling because of the presence of mercury in their system. A lot of these people I am talking about cannot stand under the sun. Now, we were battling with same thing then. We were saying that Africans need to be Africans and feel proud of being Africans.
We have an inferiority complex, sorry to say that about our race, but no amount of politicking and running around will stop it, because I see women in very high positions, women who are educated, women who should know better, who are bleached.
It will shock you to know that men also bleach.
It is a terrible shallowness of character, so sorry to use that language. It is so terrible because once I see such unhealthy practices I have to speak up.
There is this question on every cultural oriented African’s mind, which is why are we no longer having festivals such as FESTAC 77 that projects our culture and heritage?
Well, I think that our government got it a little bit wrong. They do not think that their priority is in celebrating their own. But I challenge them to say that it is. I say that because I cannot see any other way of mobilising, galvanising and really inspiring our people that is better than through the arts.
To be honest, I do not know why because when it comes to voting or when they need something gigantic to do or if they want to impress one another, they will put up a show or a pageant. And who do they call? They will call the artist. They need the artist because the artists have followers, but as soon as they get the vote they want and get into office, they forget everything.
With this system, the politicians do not even have much to do, because the artist have followers and so what happens is just for the artist to comb them in. As simple as the politician needs ears to hear what he has to say or do, the artists already have lots of fans who look up to him, who wants to emulate them. So, the game goes.
The Sun
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