Digital art thrives among crypto-curious Nigerian artists

 

At only 29, Nigerian pop-artist Osinachi has sold paintings on Microsoft Word for several thousand euros, or the equivalent amount in ether, a cryptocurrency often used to buy digital art.

One of his works, Becoming Sochukwuma, shows a black dancer wrapped in a tutu made of African fabric, dreadlocks tied in a bun, swirling on a computer screen.

But what makes the painting truly unique is its endorsement with an NFT (Non-Fungible Token) -- a set of data stored in a blockchain that is used as a certificate of ownership.

The digital painting was sold in April for $80,000 worth of virtual money on the crypto-art market, a growing business in Africa's most populous country.

Worldwide, NFTs, which serve as a unique identifier, have reassured collectors when buying online art and propelled digital artists to stardom. Between January and May, NFTs generated around $2.5 billion worth of transactions according to the website NonFungible.com sparking the interest of global auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's.

Osinachi's pieces have done very well on this emerging market and in just a few months the young man has become the most famous African crypto-artist.

He was already using Microsoft Word to paint when he was at university but "gallerists didn't care about digital art" until recently, he told AFP.

It was in 2017 that he discovered he could sell his artwork directly to buyers using a blockchain - where a record of NFT ownership can be stored.

In the past six months, as crypto-currencies and NFTs have boomed, digital art like Osinachi's has thrived.

"Now, galleries are after him," said Oyindamola Fakeye, creative director at the Center for Contemporary Art in the country's cultural capital Lagos.

"He has a very positive influence on other African digital artists."

Blockchain, cryptocurrency, NFTs, are terms that are no longer foreign to Osinachi, who spends a lot of time in person and online explaining what they are to other artists.

Many creative minds and entrepreneurs in Nigeria are inspired by his success.

It's a "revolution in the art space", said fellow crypto-artist Niyi Okeowo, whose afro-futurist work combines photography, 3D and graphic design.

Nigeria has about "a hundred" digital artists, Okeowo says, and "most have been inspired by Osinachi".

With its large, youthful, creative and connected population, the West African nation has "the potential to lead" when it comes to NFTs, Osinachi believes.

"We have plenty of talents here. The creative energy in Lagos alone is baffling among young people."

Nigerians are also fond of cryptocurrencies, contributing to the success of NFTs.

In times of economic crisis, with a devalued naira, a growing number in the country are chosing to invest in digital currency.

Last year, more than $400 million were exchanged in cryptos, making Nigeria the third-largest user of digital money worldwide, behind the US and Russia, according to Statista, a German company specialising in market and consumer data.

Entrepeneur Uyi Omokaro was an early believer in the potential of NFT in Nigeria.

This month, he launched Wearmasters, a platform to sell Africa-made NFT art, where he hopes to bring on some of Nigeria's most talented emerging artists like 23-year-old painter Daniel Pengrapher

"Our ambition is to give them international visibility through NFT."

For now, NFT collectors are few in the country. One of them is Michael Ugwu, director of a digital studio in Lagos.

"I'm one of the only ones," says Ugwu.

He started investing in cryptocurrencies in 2017, after several devaluations of the naira, before discovering his real passion: the crypto-art market.

"The traditional art space can be a little bit snobbish," said Ugwu. On the crypto-art market, he says he "found a community, so welcoming, so interactive".

He owns about "a hundred" NFTs he says proudly, but he also considers them investments.

Ugwu has used NFTs as insurance to obtain loans on the crypto-finance market, a process that would take months in the traditional banking system.

Ugwu remains confident, despite recent crypto crashes that automatically devalue his collections.

"Most of my friends think that I'm crazy... Let's wait and see in 10 years."

AFP

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Northeast Nigeria conflict killed more than 300,000 children: UN

A 12-year-old conflict in northeast Nigeria has caused, directly and indirectly, the deaths of some 350,000 people, the vast majority of which are children below the age of five, the United Nations found in a new report.

The death toll, given by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in a new study on the war and its effect on livelihoods published on Thursday, is 10 times higher than previous estimates of about 35,000 based only on those killed in fighting in Nigeria since violence broke out.

The armed group Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009 displacing more than two million from their homes and spawning one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with millions of people dependent on aid. The conflict shows little sign of ending.

Children younger than five account for some 324,000 deaths, more than nine out of 10 of those killed, with 170 dying every day, the UNDP said.

Of nearly 350,000 deaths from the conflict, it estimated 314,000 to have resulted from indirect causes.

Insecurity has led to declines in agricultural production and trade, reducing access to food and threatening the many households that depend on agriculture for their livelihood, the UN said.

Thousands of displaced people lack access to food, health facilities, shelter and clean water, with children more vulnerable, the report added.

“With another decade of conflict, that could grow to more than 1.1 million,” it said.

Nigeria’s Boko Haram group split into two in 2016 with its rival ISIL (ISIS)-allied faction ISWAP becoming the dominant threat. Despite ongoing military operations, the groups have continued to launch attacks, spreading violence to parts of neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

In the Lake Chad region, the UN said more than “3.2 million individuals are displaced, with 5.3 million food-insecure people at crisis and emergency levels”.

The situation is worse in Nigeria’s northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, it said.

“In northeast Nigeria alone, 13.1 million people live in areas affected by conflict, out of whom 8.7 million are in need of immediate assistance,” the UN said.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general, is under pressure to end armed groups’ violence.

But the security forces appear overwhelmed as they battle other security challenges, including herder-farmer clashes in the centre of the country, kidnapping and banditry in the northwest and separatist agitations in the south.

In the northeast, armed groups have kidnapped dozens of aid workers, of whom many have been killed.

Al Jazeera

Nigeria’s first female tugboat Captain emerges

Following the emergence of the first female Tug Boat Captain, Canus Ebinipre Robinson, Acting Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority, Mohammed Bello-Koko, has restated that the agency will continue to empower and provide opportunities for women in the maritime industry, while taking deliberate steps to nurture young women maritime professionals.

Bello-Koko gave this assurance last week in Lagos at a reception in honour of the country’s first female Azuimuth Stern Drive (ASD) Tugboat Captain Robinson, organized by LTT Coastal and Marine Services, the company managing the Authority’s marine crafts.

He said the Nigerian Ports Authority as an equal opportunity organization is always delighted to be associated with exceptional feats especially when accomplished by our female professionals.

He stated: “In our relentless drive to improve operational efficiency we recently invested heavily on the acquisition of world class tugs to boost towage and mooring operations at the Port, so the news of increasing availability of local talent and expertise to seamlessly maneuver sophisticated high performance vessels such as the ASD is heart gladdening for us”. He commended the Management of LTT Coastal & Marine Services Limited for the foresight that birthed such achievement.

“This feat is more heartwarming for us at the NPA because it shows that stakeholders are keying into our efforts at promoting the participation of women in the maritime ecosystem. If we must optimize the ever growing potentials and dynamism of the global Port system, we must create an atmosphere conducive for increased participation of women in port operations”, he remarked.

He described the emergence of the first female Tug boat Captain in West Africa from Nigeria as an uncommon feat that should challenge our young ladies to aspire to achieve greater heights, not because of their gender but because of their capacity.

The Authority according to the NPA Boss places high premium on gender, in her overall talent development agenda.

Capt. Ebinipre Canus Robinson, West Africa’s first female ASD Tug Boat Captain is from Bayelsa State in Nigeria. She is a product of the National Seafarers Development Programme, promoted by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA).

By Godwin Oritse 

Vanguard

Nigeria's Dangote to start exporting fertiliser to U.S., Brazil

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote’s new fertiliser plant near Lagos will export its first shipment in late June or early July, to Louisiana, while the majority of exports from the plant are expected to go to Brazil, Dangote said on Tuesday.

The new plant at the Lekki Free Zone in Lagos State, designed to manufacture 3 million tonnes of urea per year, will also be able to supply all the major markets in sub-Saharan Africa, Dangote told a virtual economic forum hosted by Qatar.

“Apart from meeting the domestic demand, we are going to be able to earn quite a lot of money exporting the goods to the South American countries,” he said.

Many in Nigeria also hope the Dangote plant will help alleviate chronically low crop yields in Africa’s most populous country, which are partly due to insufficient access to fertiliser.

According to the World Bank, Nigeria consumed around 20 kg of fertiliser per hectare of arable land in 2018, compared with 73 kg in South Africa and 393 kg in China.

Nigeria’s Central Bank bars the use of its foreign exchange for fertiliser imports as part of a raft of controls aimed at boosting domestic production. 

Reuters

Court restrains Nigeria from prosecuting Twitter users: Activists

A West African court has restrained the Nigerian government from “unlawfully” prosecuting people from using Twitter, while it is considering a legal action launched by activists and journalists seeking to reverse a ban on the social media giant.

Authorities in early June indefinitely suspended Twitter, two days after the platform removed a post from President Muhammadu Buhari that threatened to punish regional secessionists, which Twitter said violated its rules. The Nigerian attorney general further said those who defied the ban should be prosecuted, but did not provide any details as to which law would be invoked.

n response, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a local rights group, along with 176 other Nigerians, went to court to fight the ban.

On Tuesday, a statement describing the decision to suspend the hugely popular social media platform’s operations as an attempt to silence criticism of the government from SERAP quoted the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as saying it was restraining the government from acting against citizens or media outlets over the use of Twitter, pending a substantive ruling on the core issue.

“The court has listened very well to the objection,” SERAP said. “Any interference with Twitter is viewed as inference with human rights, and that will violate human rights,” it added.

The lawsuit’s applicants had argued that the Twitter suspension “escalated repression of human rights and unlawfully restricted the rights of Nigerians and other people to freedom of expression, access to information, and media freedom in the country”.

Applicants also urged the court to hold the Nigerian government liable for the violation of “their fundamental human right and for breaching its international obligations” by banning Twitter.

The government’s move prompted an immediate backlash among social media users and human rights activists, with #NigeriaTwitterBan and #KeepitOn trending on the platform as Nigerians used virtual private networks to access the site.

There was no immediate comment by the Nigerian government following Tuesday’s ruling.

Nigeria’s Information minister Lai Mohammed has previously said the suspension had nothing to do with Buhari’s tweet being deleted, but rather with “separatists inciting violence” online.

“Regulating social media is not about stifling press freedom. All we are talking about is the responsible use of these platforms,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube were still accessible.

In 2021, Nigeria ranked 120th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) World Press Freedom Index.

Al Jazeera

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