Inside a Nigerian art village

Christopher Dakut hunched over a stump of ironwood, chipping away with his mallet and chisel, inside an open shed. The wood chunks flew to the ground covered by brown wood shavings.

Dakut’s shed is one of several workshops set up in rows in Abuja’s makeshift Jabi art village, tucked into a corner along a major roadway. The craft village has provided opportunities for artisans like Dakut while serving as a tourist attraction for visitors seeking unique pieces.

A small selling station in front of his workshed boasts his varied creations: dark brown and polished animals and a woman in a headscarf. Other shops display jewelry, woven bags and baskets, and tie-dyed clothes, among other items. One craftsman resting on a tree trunk wove a raft around a metal frame. He said it would serve as a lampshade.

Dakut said he always had a knack for art from his early school days. He began learning and practicing sculpting under the tutelage of his brother, who completed an art degree at a Nigerian university.

His business has grown since then. Dakut moved to the arts and crafts village about 15 years ago and has continued to sell pieces there in addition to taking custom orders.

The community has also provided support for the artists. Dakut said it helps them to promote their works. Other artists sometimes direct potential clients to his shop, he added.

Dakut said the village receives more foreign customers, while Nigerians are more likely to bring foreign visitors or request custom furniture. One Saturday morning, a few foreigners wove in and out of different stalls looking at items and asking for prices.

“They want me to make furniture for them, something to put in the house like a table or a chair,” he said of the majority of his Nigerian clients.

That lack of support is also visible in the absence of a permanent site for the art village. Dakut said repeated efforts to get the authorities to sign off on a permanent tourist location have failed. “There will be a day they will tell us to leave,” he said.

When the pandemic hit, Dakut said, it mostly brought the market to a halt. They had fewer local walk-ins, and COVID-19 eliminated the tourist trade.

“It slowed the business; nobody was coming for the whole of that year,” he said.

Dakut said he still came into his workshop daily to work on his stockpile of custom orders, which kept his family of six going throughout the year.

Dakut has also opened up his business to apprentices like Christian Clement, who was sandpapering a carved animal in the shed. He ran me through the process: from sketching on the piece of wood to carving, scraping, sandpapering, and finishing with polish.

Clement said he hopes to learn enough to set up his own business and train others. “God brought me to somebody who would help me get to where I’m supposed to be,” he said.

Dakut still has big dreams for his work. He plans to move to another country to continue creating art pieces but vowed to wait until he can make the journey legally.

In the meantime, he continues to enjoy the process of randomly getting ideas and waking up to sketch them out quickly before spending hours carving them into something substantial.

“It gives me joy when I’m working, even when I can’t afford to eat because I’m getting exactly what I’m doing,” he said. “Every day I make sure I produce something and that none of the other craftsmen has the same thing as me.”