Josy Ajiboye, the Ultimate Prankster: Political Cartoonist as Egungun

Crafting a successful witty, satirical political cartoon with only an image in a single pane accompanied by a phrase or a headline caption takes years of practice. Couple these skills with the cleverly indirect ways of Yoruba communication, and you have a consummate political cartoonist like Josy Ajiboye. With deft moves and agile wit, the editorial cartoon was Ajiboye's épée of choice. Each of his single-panel drawings contains complex overlapping meanings and metaphor, revealing that he is Eshu. Disguised in his Egungun costume, he is the ultimate prankster critiquing modernity. Nigerians love good humor, a well-turned phrase, and biting satire. Indirect criticism in the form of puns, parody, proverbs, and parables is the preferred method for correcting poor behavior, both interpersonally and on a larger sociological and cultural scale. Here I will explore how Josy Ajiboye, in the form of the Egungun, affected the politics and cartooning traditions of Nigeria for approximately forty years, from the late 1960s to the mid 2000s. Further, through this essay I demonstrate that political cartooning has a place within art history because it provides unique glimpse into the psyche of the culture from the insider's point of view.

As a political cartoonist working in the heady days of the petroleum oil boom in Nigeria between the 1970s and 1990s, Ajiboye excelled at first entertaining his audience by skewering the corrupt official and the wealthy tycoon for overly excessive displays of elitism, and then using his bully pulpit to bare uncomfortable social problems such as the ever-widening chasm between the rich and poor. Through spare imagery, he documented crime, the clash between Christianity and traditional culture(s), the malaise wrought by postindependence dreams that went unfulfilled, and the failure of government to provide basic services to its citizens. Using Western modernity, Ajiboye and fellow cartoonists (including dele jegede, with whom he worked) performed the role of the Egungun of the past for modern Nigerians. Much has been written in Western academic circles about the Egungun: who they represent and how integral they are to Yoruba society. However, not much is understood about how Nigerian cartoonists used the Egungun to perform for their audience, and not much has been written about the mantle and responsibility that is demanded of the cartoonist as Egungun when he performs in public. In exercising his responsibilities as cultural commentator, fear of reprisal was ever present.

THE STATE OF RESEARCH CONCERNING CARTOONING IN NIGERIA

In the period since I first presented this material at the 2011 Arts Council of the African Studies Association (ACASA) conference, numerous articles have appeared in print and on the Internet, discussing aspects of political cartooning in Nigeria: Yomi Ola's Satires of Power in Yoruba Visual Culture (2013) on the works of some of Nigeria's leading cartoonists had its origin in his 2009 doctoral thesis, Ganiyu A. Jimoh's The Role of Editorial Cartoons in the Democratisation Process in Nigeria: A Study of Selected Works of Three Nigerian Cartoonists (2011), a book that was similarly based on his 2010 Master of Arts thesis, and others. Over the years, sporadic magazine articles have been written about Nigerian cartoons. Before it folded in 2002, Glendora Review, a literary quarterly, published two articles about the state of Nigerian art and cartooning: "Storm in a Teacup: Artist Josy Ajiboye Looks Back" (Ajiboye 2001) and "The Traditions of Cartooning in Nigeria" (Olaniyan 1997). Since the 1990s, a number of essays, theses, and dissertations have been written about the role of political cartooning within Nigeria. None place exclusive focus upon Ajiboye. In 1983, the Daily Times, a local newspaper, published an incomplete compendium of Ajiboye cartoons; however, this book is not readily available, and neither Ajiboye nor the Daily Times have good archival records of these cartoons. Further research is required if there is ever to be a complete record of his work. Because computerized and digital records are still not commonplace in Nigeria, it is difficult to compile complete archives for his corpus of work.

Little has been written in Western scholarly journals about the political impact of...