Is art a limitless freedom way?: Creatives, academics, regulator, rights crusaders Stampede iREP 2025 to a close

If you feel strongly about what you have been inspired to do, go ahead and show it – Dede

Artist should put our diversity, ethnic, multi-religious and diverse beliefs into context while creating – Husseini

I would like us to talk about artists who are shaping the future we are going into, what I call imagination engineering – Odugbemi

By Anote Ajeluorou

IREP International Documentary Film Festival 2025 did not come to a close last Sunday, March 30 without a spectrum of creatives properly interrogating its theme, ‘(Artistic) Freedom: Rights and Responsibility’, with the usual CORA Art Stampede, a platform that gives artists opportunity to vent on any given burning cultural issue agitating their minds. This year’s theme was premised on the seemingly limitless freedom that artists tend to enjoy while making their art in whatever creative format they choose to communicate with their publics. But at CORA Stampede, the question posed was a variant of the overarching theme: ‘Is Art a Limitless Freedom Way?’ In other words, how far can the liberty of creatives stretch before it crosses the boundary of responsibility and impede on the rights of others and society generally, with its usual consequences?

Moderating the exciting topic was ace radio personality and trainer Anikeade Funke-Treasure, and the filled Kongi Harvest hall had artists and artist-academics like the Dean of Faculty of Arts, Wigwe University, Dr. Sam Dede, Dr. Kunle Adeyemi, regulator like Executive Director, National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) Dr. Shaibu Husseini, theatre director and President of National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) Mr. Makinde Adeniran, Programme Officer of Unchained Vibes Africa (UVA) Mr. Segun Aribisala, UVA Director Shola Alamutu (Green Queen), among a host of other creatives and artistic rights campaigners.

“CORA Stampede started as part of interventions in iRep,” CORA Secretary Mr. Toyin Akinosho explained. “The context is that in 2009, (late moviemaker) Amaka Igwe invited CORA to curate the colloquium for BOBTV in Abuja at a film and TV fair. It was basically about the movie industry, whereas Stampedes are about arguments for all artists – writers, fashion designers, visual artists; that was how it started. Today, it’s basically about moving away from the movie to the entire art. What we are evaluating are those kind of speeches that are called freedom of speech. Where does your responsibility end and mine starts, and where is the civic duty that you have as an artist? Even though you are allowed to critique the government…, we’ve seen works in the military era that actually replaced the face of the head of state; but then that head of state actually killed one of our most significant writers (Ken Saro-Wiwa) in this country. We have works that are satire that knock governments.

“In South Africa in 2012, President Jacob Zuma took an artist to court, a white South African painter, for a work in an exhibition he called ‘The Spear’. We all know Jacob Zuma loves women. He has six wives, and he was always getting married to another one. And so the man was depicted with ‘The Spear’ image. Zuma is supposed to be a big Zulu chief, and he considered himself a traditional man, but the artist was just trying to get at Zuma for his corrupt leadership. What I find interesting about it is that unlike here where they might summarily clamp you into jail, Zuma took the artist to court. I understand those kind of images. If you were targeting corruption, how would you be categorizing the president? I don’t know, but that’s why we have these very smart people who are going to moderate the conversation. That is the context in which CORA set up this panel. We have been in a democratic country for the last 26 years now, with our art that still continues to critique the government. But the conversation this time around is, ‘how much is too much?’ Funke Treasure will lead us to some kind of understanding.”

Co-founder of iREP Mr. Femi Odugbemi and Executive Director, NFVCB Dr. Shaibu Husseini at the event PHOTOS: TAIWO OLUSOLA JOHNSON

When Funke Treasure took over, she read out a chilling quote about serial killers also equating what they do to some sort of art thereby deserving protection: ‘Art must have limits; without limits serial killers could adjudge their work as art and that they deserve being protected by law!’ She referred to instances of skit-makers going overboard with their work and also creating a brand of skits that depict Nigeria in particularly unflattering, lewd ways with the female anatomy being dominant that social media algorithms now play up as part of Nigeria’s social consciousness.

According to her, “Skitmaker, using Quadri, in one of the characters, created a skit which Quadri disrespected the king in Seven Doors, done by Femi Adebayo, and there was outrage. Why would you make Quadri insult a king in Yorubaland? And that’s how I’m going to start this session, a free-willing session. Anybody can jump in. In Yorubaland, kings are the ultimate; so, when you have a character insulting the king…, we do not talk back to a king in Yoruba land. So, this poetic license, is it limitless?”

Actor, theatre scholar and Dean of Faculty of Arts, Wigwe University, Rivers State Dr. Sam Dede was first to jump into the CORA Stampede fray. Although argued that artists should express themselves within the limits of the law, he was also careful not toe the line of needless self-censorship that waters down art and also asked artists to be true to their inner calling and damn the consequences the law would throw at them, saying they could run away if the law closes in on them. He tasked creatives to possibly take a cue from Prof. Wole Soyinka who took the dictum of Bob Marley to heart and ran away when it became too heated only to later come back to fight another day.

“How far is too far? It’s a very significant question for every artist,” the actor and university don said. “Let me begin by saying that whether you are an artist or craftsman, some people would want to draw a very huge line between the two – artists and craftsmen. Whatever you do, your art comes by inspiration. It doesn’t just come from nowhere. You are inspired by something. And my thinking is, if that inspiration leads you on to be fearless, to go the extra mile, and to show what you have been inspired to do… if you feel strongly about what you have been inspired to do, go ahead and show it.

“Being too far stretched is not a question that an artistic should consider; he should follow the inspiration, but you must also realize that there are laws guiding the practice of art, because no art takes place nowhere. Every art is localized. Whether you are doing your art in Bayelsa State, or wherever, if you think that the message that you have has to go out there in a manner that you have been inspired to do it, then you go ahead and do it. You must remember that there are limits to the expression of that art.”

Dance expert, journalist and film sector regulator Dr. Husseini who has been in office for about a year now, said although while he is “for freedom, especially when it comes to artistic expression, but I’m also one that believes that every artist must know the environment where he works, the laws, respect for one another, respect for dignity and what you may consider as abusing the sensibility of another person. Our own society is very peculiar.

“So, in as much as artists have freedom to express themselves, we should also know that we have obligations to the society we are presenting the arts to. So if you know that you operate in a society that, for instance, there is a law against same-sex in Nigeria, a 2014 law, and you think you’re pushing a narrative about what is unlawful, and then you think you’re exercising freedom of expression? Those are two different stuffs, but overall I believe that nobody should be gaged from expressing themselves. The artist should know that he has a responsibility; he should know that there are laws in the land. The artist should also put our diversity, our ethnic and multi-religious and diverse beliefs in the country into context while creating.”

Husseini said while the board he presides over ha ‘censors’ in its named, a word that is anathema to artistic expression, he revealed that he was working hard to engage the National Assembly to change it to reflect the globally acceptable term ‘classification’, noting however that it takes time for the process to be realised.

“When I took over the censors board, there was a lot of cases I met in ground, and they were suggesting to me that we never wanted these people to express themselves,” he said. “I basically said that we are just going to classify works, but it’s only works that we find impacting national security that we won’t allow. If this issue that happened in Edo State is not managed very well, I know that in our own kind of environment, there could be reprisal act in all parts of the country. If you are an artist, and you want to create a work, and you want to do something about that, you should also know that the tone and way you present it matters a lot.

“So, we started a classification, but I don’t have the power to change name. I have to go to the National Assembly, so we can classify movies. At the board, artists have freedom to express themselves, but they should know that we have our obligation to society. We also know that we have a limit to how we can create, especially when you consider our peculiar environment.”

Dr. Sam Dede and CORA Stampede moderator Anikeade Funke-Treasure

THEATRE director and newly elected President of NANTAP Mr. Makinde Adeniran detailed how his mind works while creating, saying it moves from idea conception stage to actually writing it down as a play, and this allows him to distil the idea thoroughly. He noted that time and space determine the limit of freedom an artist enjoys which is further circumscribed by the artistic language being deployed.

“Using this analogy of a writer, and as a writer myself, it’s about inspiration,” he said. “The type of writer that I am is, when the inspiration comes, I can’t write. I just keep working it. If I need to note something, I would note, but I keep working it. And after that time of inspiration, maybe five or six days later, the writer comes back to earth, and then I would sieve through, because it’s not everything in that inspiration that I will put down. In some cases, you begin to see the real character, and then you begin to watch those characters, and it begins to suggest to you how those characters should talk and what they should talk.

“For me, freedom happens in time and space, and time and space determine the limit of your freedom; you can’t go beyond that because by that you have gone against the law. So, freedom of expression is more of a guide for a writer, because you must know the focus of your art. Is it activism? Because those are the things you determine before you even put your art out there, and you must understand the consequences. When you want to produce a satire, you must understand the language. Our culture has given us such a beautiful chance of escaping all of these things. It determines your understanding as a creative person. The likes of Wole Soyinka, they wrote some things that now that we are reading some of it, we’re saying, ‘you have abused that person that time, seriously,’ and we understand it.

“An artist must understand the language of the time. These are core weapons for you to exercise that freedom. Checking the loopholes… I think it’s a pressure on the creatives itself when they say freedom of expression, yes, and I believe in it, but it’s equally a pressure to work more, to know how the language to sail through. It’s not just one way, no. You must equally be pressured to know how to talk, the same way that you want to talk in a language that you choose. So, these elements must come in for you to actually exercise that freedom.”

Also, Programme Manager of Unchained Vibes Africa Mr. Aribisala stressed the importance of the work they do for artists to be able to express themselves freely without encumbrances of the state that stifles creatives. He, however, sued artists not to go above the limits of the laws governing the space where they create, so they don’t run fowl of the laws and end up in prison as many artists have found themselves. UVA recently worked in concert with other organisations to free AGY Yakasai from Kano’s draconian laws infringing on artistic expression which inspired the artist to release a music video ‘Labarina’, celebrating his freedom from gulag.

“At Unchained Vibes Africa, we fight for artistic freedom,” Aribisala said. “However, I believe there is nothing called limitlessness in artistic expression. There’s no limitless creativity or artistic view. Even Brymo said ‘freedom is prison.’ So, when an artist wants to do something, there should be legal consideration, consideration about the cultural environment in which the artist is creating, or else the artist faces the music. So, you should consider the environment in which you want to create whatever it is you want to create.”

NANTAP President Mr. Makinde Adeniran

iRep co-founder and filmmaker Mr. Odugbemi also weighed in on the limit of artistic freedom and suggested ‘imaginative engineering’ for creatives to not always make art that is only militant in nature, but one also envisions a different reality from lived reality, as a way of pointing a better direction for society to follow. He gave instance of a particular film in America that projected the positive image of a black president that possibly paved the way for Barrack Obama to emerge as president in 2008.

“We need to centre our conversation away from defining the artist simply as a rebel against authority,” Odugbemi advocated. “There’s a difference between popularity and notoriety. The artist must not be notorious. The Fela we talk about was truly conscious, well trained, one who came from a family of people who spoke truth to power. Then we talk about artists who are disadvantaged and all of that. There are so many kinds of artists. I would like us to talk about artists who are shaping the future we are going into. We live in a country where there’s so much negativity that it appears as if we go from one level, one depth of sinking to another. It’s a challenge for our industry. If the country is going to become everything we are all hoping it will be, the artistic sector has a leverage in emotional, subliminal manner in such a way that we respond to; the negativity we see now is a response to the art we are doing.

Hinting on the politics of arts without saying so, Odugbemi enjoined his colleagues to deploy their art to envision a better future for the country away from the current negativity. While art is reflective of its society as a mirror, the producer of Tinsel also said art is capable of providing alternative reality that has power to sway society positively in a particular direction where it hadn’t imagined possible before.

“How do we find the freedom, the responsibility to turn that around, to actually start speaking in the language of art, not just about what has been done but what can be? That is what I mean when I talk about imagination engineering. I often talk about Madam President. For me, the film is so important, to put an image out there about a female president. The truth of the matter is, whatever the artistic merit of that film was, or is, the greater good of that film is that it would change the perspective of females about going into politics, about possibilities, about leadership. I think those are the kind of art that would take our freedom forward and force us to think about it. There would never have been a black president in America if there was not a film like that, a black president making decisions, and making the right decisions. For many people, it was that film that made it possible for Barrack Obama to be voted for, and that almost happened again when Hilary Clinton and the last Vice President Kamala Harris ran for office. There is a way imagery is so critical, whether in art, film, or whatever form. We have to have leadership, as well as artists to kind of define a future that we want.”

Odugbemi, while suing for attitudinal change in all facets of Nigerian life for the desired country to emerge from the current chaos, charged his colleagues in the creative space, “to reshape Nigeria (with their craft). I was talking with someone the other day, he’s not a Nigerian, and he says, ‘how come 90 per cent of skits and everything on social media in Nigeria has nothing to do about Nigeria’s landscapes, has nothing to do with how you can actually enjoy visiting Nigeria?’ Evidently, we don’t even realize that limiting possibilities by focusing on unimportant things. I supervised an artist from a West African country recently. And he said from the thinking stage to the story board, to the day they were going to location to shoot, there is always someone from the ministry there, so that if you constructed a shot that is out of tune, the guy would say ‘No’, and shut it down.”

ALSO, journalist, writer and publisher Mr. Anote Ajeluorou argued that of all those in the creative value chain only literary artists seem to understand what it takes to create without necessarily falling fowl of the law, saying, “This is because they read, or maybe those they write against don’t read! Musicians, filmmakers, and others should emulate writers who know what it is to create without getting on the wrong side of the law. No other creative reads as much as the literary artist. Also, writers are equipped with linguistic or creative resources like the arrays of imageries to deploy in their works that naturally circumvent possible charges of personal attacks that other creatives fall easy prey. Creatives should study the current Cybercrimes and Cybersecurity laws to better acquaint themselves with what they can say or do, so their art does not run into trouble.

“In any case, should creatives run fowl of the law, there’s an array of legal minds and organisations like Unchained Vibes Africa (UVA) and Mr. Deji Toye to fall back to for legal help. Indeed, we need to test the legality of some of these laws and be better informed about their usefulness, especially in places like Kano and parts of the north that have a number of draconian laws that make no meaning but just to stifle artistic freedom. Each time those laws get tested in law courts, they crumble; artists get vindicated. The number of creatives who have been set free by the courts in Kano is a reminder that not all laws are made with good sense. Some are made with the intent to cage citizens. Only by testing them would we puncture them and create safe spaces for artists to flourish.”

Academic and visual artist Dr. Kunle Adeyemi who teaches at Yaba College of Technology, Lagos said his art vocation thrives less and economically rewarding when it’s provocative or confrontational unlike other art forms “like music and literary art, for instance,” he said. “Again, Fela would go away with that because music has a way of appealing to the sensibilities of miscreants, but the visual artists, you have collectors that when they see what you do, no matter what they want to buy what they like to see. Not everyone would want to see horrible or horror images in their homes. I remember in photography, there was this man, Thomas Grant… what that American would do was go to war zones, take photographs of all the horrible situations and all that, and the man became a pauper, and it was when he died that they started collecting and archiving his works.

“Artists generally are seers. We foresee, foretell and see the future and what patterns, what stories, what symbols, particularly the visual artists to present. Then I can actually criticize the system using art. In freedom of art, but I’m cautious because I don’t want to eat my painting, I want to sell them. So, definitely, I must. A scholar once said wisdom is profitable to a career. You must be able to use wisdom to project whatever you want to do. So, visual artists, particularly in Nigeria, must begin to look at identity. What do we identify with? Is it protest? Is it culture? If it’s to say activities, documenting stories, yes, it’s good. This identity is important for the artist. So, freedom is good, however, we need to mind the type of freedom we project, so that we can survive.”

While contributing via Zoom, Ottawa, Canada-based professor of English at Carleton University Nduka Otiono argued that “there are different approaches to art, and what causes the spread of art? If one had erotic art, would that make it relevant art? I think the case can be made that it’s relevant art from the perspective of who’s seeing it. In other words, I believe art can be broken down to the traditional idea of content, and how do you match your idea with your theme? When you have themes or highly inflammable themes, you use that kind of expression when given the context that Dr. Shaibu has presented and others have spoken about. How do you actually see art? In other words, it’s very important to define the boundary, to define the agenda of the artist. For some of us, art cannot but be political, so I think for those who say that all art is political… Silence is political. It’s actually the most political non-statement in art. It’s a very important topic, and I want to thank the organizers for choosing this very thoughtful theme. Freedom and arts – I think it’s a matter of conscience, and the agenda that you seek, and the cinematic and political agenda that an artist chooses.”

Also, London-based theatre director Mr. Lookman Sanusi who joined virtually enjoined creatives to “go beyond holding talks,” asking critically, “how relevant is art to society? We need to connect with these young ones making art/skits to get them better educated on their works, so they refocus their works for the service of society.”

UVA Programme Officer Mr. Segun Aribisala

LAWYER and poet Mr. Toye recalled some of Nigeria’s legendary artists who passed through censorship fire alongside their works such as Fela, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Soyinka and Chief Herbert Ogunde, saying that they damned the consequences of their singularity of view against the norm, as pathfinders for modern-day artists to follow.

“You will notice (that) if we run through these people, they used their art at different levels, in different phases, to navigate their environment at the time,” Mr. Toye said. “Soyinka probably suffered more than any Nigerian artist, more than Fela because he held up a radio station, or he was talking with rebels in Biafra or Ogunde, simply because he put a film on stage, and then twice during the colonial times, he was banned. In post-independence, Ogunde was also banned, until as late as the 1970s. He could not put up his shows during (Major General Olusegun) Obasanjo’s regime at the newly built National Theatre, but what you find is that he was not just responding to the political environment during the colonial times and post-independent. He was also responding to his own artistic environment.

“One of the parties that Ogunde had to fight was the African film establishment. When filmmakers in Nigeria took their films to FESPACO, they are never given recognition, simply because their films didn’t answer to the confession of what was going to be seen at the time. So Ogunde was fighting that fight, but in this sense, he was fighting for his own right to make films in the language that he understood, from the tradition he was coming from, to stage, to theatre, and all of that. If you look at Soyinka too, his fight was political, but one of the greatest was actually his fight in literature. The fight he had with Chinweizu and others. That was a fight he had to fight to say, ‘no, I want to write my poetry this way, I want to write my drama this way. I’m not going to yield to what is supposed to be African literature.’

“Look at the literature of Ken Saro Wiwa, you will never hear politics in it. So if you come to the developmental quality of Saro-Wiwa, be ready to look at his critiques, his essays and articles he was writing. In fact in 1993, when he was going to leave writing and leave the presidency of the Association of Nigerian Authors, he sent a note to the secretary that he would be retiring from ANA and essentially from literature, because the phase of what he was going to do, literature was not strong enough to do it. All of these are expressions of freedom. When we are talking about artistic freedom, you must have an idea, and I think that often goes into what we are talking about if expressing artistic freedom means that I can write what I like. But are you controlled by something within that monitors your expressive freedom? Which also relates to your own life, with the way you relate with society, to your responsibility to community and the rest of it… Unless you have that, you probably adjust your art. Who wants to be able to express whatever they like without essentially having a central anchor of what it means to be an artist? Artists are citizens, and whether you’re an artist or a political scientist, or an NGO and you have a responsibility to society. Now, the exercise of freedom is a special nucleus within you that pushes you in responding to all these.”

Dr. Dede also reacted to hunger as motivation for creativity whether, according to him, “Hunger spiritually, hunger physically, hunger mentally, for you to be able to create something, so it depends on the kind of hunger you’re talking about. My thinking is never to be satisfied. If you are fulfilled as an artist, you reach a limit that you no longer want to be an artist. You just want to be an entertainer. My thinking is that an artist needs to paint those faces to capture those scenarios. In every art, there’s an outward expression of experience, feelings. You imagine as a painter, when you are overfed, the first thing you want to do is sleep. So what time do you have? You need just a little (hunger) to stay that way, to stay inspired to carry out your art, but you must remember that you need food to do the next art. You need money to produce the next thing. Yes, there has to be some boundaries.”