ANYONE who wishes to assess the Obasanjo regime's attitude to art appreciation and promotion must take a look at the report on Saving Africa's Art contained in the Time Magazine of June 18, 2001.

The magazine reports that in 1999 the Louvre Museum in Paris purchased from a Belgian dealer a collection of 2,000-year-old Nok terracotta sculptures for about $400,000.00.

As Simon Robinson and Aisha Labi put it in the story, "they are among the center-pieces of an exhibition that was inaugurated by President Jacques Chirac over a year ago then and the reverence with which they are displayed demonstrates the Western art establishment's growing appreciation of African art. But the exhibition, which came about through Chirac's own instruction that the Louvre, devote gallery space to ethnic art, is clouded by allegations surrounding the Nok's acquisition. Nok terra-cottas are on the International Council of Museums' Red List of objects 'banned from export, (that) may under no circumstances be put on sale and Nigerian law prohibits their export. President Chirac is reported to have personally sought approval for the purchase of the Noks from Nigeria's then military ruler, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, the request was rebuffed on the advice of the N.C.M.M., which warned that the works had been "illegally exported from Nigeria and therefore remained the legal cultural property of Nigeria."

According to Time, "After Nigeria returned to civilian rule in May of 1999 the French government raised the matter once again. This time, the new government gave its approval to the transaction. In February 2000, just two months before the Louvre display opened, a formal agreement authorising the Nok transaction was signed by Nigerian Culture Minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe and Branly Museum director Stephane Martin during Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo's state visit to France. The French agreed to provide Nigerian museums with technical support including the exchange of publications, the organisation of conferences and researcher exchanges-and in return the Noks were symbolically handed over by President Obasanjo."

I have only quoted Time at length in order to give the reader and the average artist an insight into the Nigerian government's attitude to art and creativity. But I must quickly add that the fact that the approval sought by Jacques Chirac was not given by the General Abdusalami Abubakar administration does not exonerate that regime from the perennial anti-art attitude of successive governments in Nigeria.

Nor does Obasanjo's granting of the request make his regime the worst in that respect. Perhaps one can say that the Obasanjo regime, as far as the patronage and promotion of Nigerian art is concerned, has only exploited an old pattern.

But the logical question that must follow is if previous governments have brazenly neglected art and artists (of course, to the detriment of society), must the present regime follow the example?

Must the government continue to nurture an exemplary dehumanised society where art and artists are confined to the fringe?

The problem of art and artists in Nigeria derives from the ineptitude of the art administration and indirectly from the ephemeral interest of government. Since the culture sector is poorly funded, it is easy to lay all the blame for the sorry state of affairs in the sector at the door of government.

But any critically concerned person will also wonder whether those in art administration have done their best in terms of the proffering and execution of ideas and a more creative and imaginative system of funds generation. From the public museums and galleries down to the art councils, all are like Siberia- every one knows where they are but not one wants to go.

In some cases, people do not even know where the public museums and galleries are and what they represent. Nigerian museums, including the newly-built ones, are dead ends. They smell of neglect and despair and give little or no courage to anyone to regard the past and its heritage with any enthusiasm.

The fact that the museums in these parts do not encourage much visits simultaneously underscores our society's loss of its past and logically its loss of its future. For in reality, there is only past and future. The present is but a fleeting realm that can be claimed by no one.

If the Nigerian society continues to regard art and culture as luxurious entertainment, we will remain a people carelessly uprooted, with neither memory nor desire. If the culture sector in Nigeria is poorly funded, the onus lies on those who accept to be appointed art-culture administrators to try to make the best of a bad situation. While also exploring various possible means to make our lethargic governments more responsive to the needs of art and its role as a socialising agent.

There is need to attract more visitors to the public museums and galleries and empower them to constructively reach out to the people as mediators of the common heritage rather than arbiters of dead and forgotten consciousness.

The situation where some of the museum halls in Nigeria are used for weddings and other non-culture events cannot be said to be geared towards visitor increase. It only adds to the plight of the museums, as it is merely "museum abuse" par excellence. I do not know of any museum in Nigeria that records up to 10,000 visitors in a given year. In some cases, the visitor record does not exceed 1,000, that is, excluding those who come to see occasional temporary exhibits of so-called contemporary art.

The above scenario calls for serious concerns, as it presents the museums as a waste pipe. But evidence in some other countries where the potentials of the museum have been creatively harnessed shows that the museum can be an agency for cultural democracy, social cohesion, and economic development.

Of course, this fact also relates to art itself when it is adequately enabled to fulfil its eternal role, not just by the artist, but also by the mediating institutions and agencies, (museums, galleries art councils, the public among others).

For art is art, not just for its own sake, but for the consecrate infusions it receives from the relevant institutions, the society and the public.

Unfortunately, the Nigerian society lacks the capacity to enthrone art as a major arbiter of common and transcendental values. Again, this can be traced to government's attitude.

If art and aesthetics have no place in the general scheme of things, their appreciation will remain the exclusive preserve of a few elite. This situation is in contradistinction to what obtained in pre-colonial times when art belonged to everyone.

Today art is a luxury and no longer part of the conscience of society. This is why everything in these parts is so sterile. The sterility of the concept of society and development in these parts is the child of the severance of art from society.

You could see the effects in our highly dehumanised roads, in our austere homes, the brutally-utilitarian public buildings, the recklessly defaced public monuments, the do-or-die brand of politics that has thrived here. Not even science and technology are allowed to be complimented by art's salve. Of course, the problem is not entirely a Nigerian one. But if there is any place where the separation of art from society has taken a great toll, that place is Nigeria.

As former Japanese Prime Minister Mori told some visiting African artists (including myself) in Tokyo in November 2001, "There is art in everything, including politics."

When science and politics over-awe the human psyche with their often dangerous exertions, only art can repair the divided consciousness. The Nigerian society, with its crop of bread-and-butter leaders, does not acknowledge this fact, as it rides rough-shod along the face of time.

Not only that. These are very "Dark Ages." What with the prevalent triumph of materialism and the suffocating religious revivalism that have encircled Nigeria in recent years. Some people would readily point at hunger as the bane of the situation. Hunger may be part of it. But it is to the unprecedented inversion of value that we must turn if we seek any solution to the anti-art syndrome that has characterised the leadership of Nigeria and its culture sector up until the present.

For too long, government's conception of art and culture is circumscribed by raffia -wearing dancers and local crafts. There is no credible art festival organised by government, no national exhibit where the state of art in the country can be measured and celebrated annually. There are no institutions or systems through which excellence in the arts can be duly rewarded. The art institutions and organisations are mired in anachronistic bureaucracy. And the Nigerian artist, an endangered species of sorts, waits in vain for encouragement from a government whose out-look remains strait-jacketed.

Of course, when the jaundiced eye of the prevalent post-modern "religionmania" in Nigeria is added to the above scenario, we are faced with a state of anomie that impacts most negatively on the art situation.

While a good number of artists have been lost to religious fanaticism, art as a whole is impeded by such fanaticism in terms of the dwindling perspicacity of its vision and subject matters. Overbearing religiousness presupposes orthodoxy, which is one of the greatest enemies of art.

I have insisted elsewhere that a priest-ridden society, like ours, does not beget great art. Born-again, fanatical art administrators and museologists (especially the species we have in Nigeria) can be the greatest enemies of movement as far as the development of art is concerned. But I must hasten to add that I do not condemn religion in itself. Religion plays a vital role in society.

This role is better performed and appreciated when it is aligned with other factors in the society, as religion is only one of the socialising agents of society. When a people overfeed themselves on one social nutrient (in this case, religion) out of all that is available to the given developing society, such a people are running the risk of social kwashiokor, as is the case with contemporary Nigeria.

All told, the problem with art in Nigeria is not an isolated case. It has been the same in much of Africa. There is nothing strange or unusual about it. It is only a by-product of the prevailing social situation where development is defined along the lines of soldiery and mercantile politics.

The present government, like its predecessors, has failed to recognise the role of art in economic development and nation-building. The continued non-creation of a Ministry of Arts and Culture remains the bane of art in Obasanjo's Nigeria. The situation is further worsened by the bohemian attitude of the nation's art-culture leaders who are only concerned with holding on to office and doing little or nothing to justify their positions.

It will be foolhardy for anyone to expect much change in the art circuit in Obasanjo's second tenure. As usual, art and culture will begin and end with raffia-wearing dancers. After all, if we go by Peter Ezeh's "mould analogy" the art industry is but a micro of the Nigerian macrocosm. It can only be as bad or as good as Nigeria itself. To expect otherwise may amount to hoping against hope.