Between heritage and economy: Inside Ogun varsities where students revive culture with Adire

Adire, known as a darling fashion heritage of the people of Ogun State, has come a long way despite challenges faced by those in the business line.  IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI, after a tour of tertiary institutions in Ogun State, reports efforts by students, despite daunting hiccups, in harnessing the cultural and economic potential in the production and sale of adire (tie and dye) fabrics both for local and international patronage.

Following the second semester break in 2018, Olayinka Murisikudeen Binuyo, 300-level student of Business Administration and Management at the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUNAAB), left Abeokuta for Lagos to secure a N20,000 job at a pension and funds management company located at Ilupeju.

He intended to use the meager monthly salary to raise money for tuition for the new academic session. His hopes were dashed upon getting to Ilupeju. He was told that the vacancy available at the company was in Ajah, quite a distance from his earlier anticipation. Knowing full well he could not continue doing the casual jobs to raise funds and also to solicit support from family members, he decided to make ends meet by learning a craft. With the will to start a business idea which would fetch him money, he stumbled upon a dye shop.

“I headed to the dye store not even knowing what to buy but I was determined to make that change. I asked a lot of questions and directions on how to use the chemicals considering the proportion I could afford. I didn’t know anyone I could ask to tutor me or a place I could learn from so I leveraged on the internet as a means of learning the skill,” he said.

Today, aside from being in his sophomore year at the university, Binuyo is a textile designer and creative director of Qamp-halar Clothing Company. His passion for tradition and cultural aestheticism has sparked the desire to start a fashion line that would help promote the creative side of the African heritage.

Where it all started

Binuyo’s dreams did not start in 2018; it started long before in the early decades of the 20th century when the spread of European textile merchants in Abeokuta and other Yoruba towns as well as the new access to large quantities of imported shirting material made the local women in Abeokuta and Ibadan venture into adire. This caused a boom in women’s entrepreneurial and artistic efforts and adire, a major local craft that attracted buyers from all over West Africa. Although the missionaries introduced the people to cotton in the 1850s, cotton weaving, pottery and adire are all traditional crafts of the Abeokuta people.

Just as the sector has grown over the years, stakeholders have continued to clamour for government’s support for many years. It was not farfetched that the Ogun State government under the leadership of Senator Ibikunle Amosun initiated an international fashion show involving usage of adire, the construction of Adire Mall at the ancient Itoku Market in Abeokuta which was inaugurated to mark the 4th African Drums Festival and also made adire the seal of Ogun State.

Adire: Ogun’s gift to the world

As Itoku is known for the making of adire and kampala, it also serves as a market where fabrics in different designs and colours are sold. But most of the shops and dying centres in the market were demolished in 2012 by Governor Amosun to pave way for the construction of a flyover and expansion of the Sapon-Kemta-Itoku road. This development also prompted the same government to build modern complexes with 215 shops to replace the demolished shops. The shops were allocated to the adire makers after the Adire Mall was inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019.

The ‘Adire Ogun’ seal which was adopted the official cultural identity of Ogun State was unveiled on Thursday, April 25th 2019 as part of activities to mark the 2019 African Drum Festival. “Today we stand on the threshold of history to launch the seal of authenticity of our adire. The seal will further affirm our unique quality of excellence claim known as the Ogun standard and will lay a solid foundation for the adire fabric to take its pride of place in the global fabric industry,” Amosun said.

Students’ new found love 

This process of making adire and the chequered support it had got from the government, however, has not deterred students in the state from getting their hands into indigo dye as many of them in the Gateway State have taken to this in order to make ends meet. From FUNAAB, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic (MAPOLY), Abeokuta to Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago-Iwoye, nothing can stop the dream of many young Nigerians who have taken to adire making. When Nigerian Tribune approached them, they enthused their separate dreams to establish fashion.

“As for me, anytime I see people rock my adire designs, I am always elated, even though my customers pay lesser,” Samuel Makinde, an HND 1 student of MAPOLY said.

Just like Binuyo, Makinde had approached an adire store with N5,000 and got the materials and chemicals needed, even though he only had the basic knowledge. He made his first set of designs and started wearing them himself.

Makinde, who dreams to own the largest African textile school in the world said, “Sometimes, people order for shirts or t-shirts and when it’s ready they’ll say they don’t want that particular design anymore because they’ve seen another beautiful design that I made alongside their order during that time. Some want high-quality materials but are hell-bent on paying little.”

‘We need grants from government’

Makinde further urged the government to support the industry with “enabling environment and of course, grants that can help achieve our expansion plans because it will be to the glory of God and our dear nation. Let’s support what is ours and let’s stop regarding it as archaic.”

Nigerian Tribune equally met Wakilat Sanni, Oluwatosin Adewumi and three other colleagues setting up buckets, pots and plain white clothing materials at the foyer of MAPOLY Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (MAPCED). They had come to produce 45 adire designs which form part of the requirements to pass EED 426, a core course for final year students of the institution.

Sanni told Nigerian Tribune: “I conceived the adire business idea with a group of five students in my class for our entrepreneurship course. At first, we were hesitant to venture into adire making because no one among us knew about it but we had no choice because our lecturer approved it. But our supervisor instructed us to do the production in school so that he could supervise the production.

“We all know it’s not easy for most, especially students to start a business because of constraints of money and time but the words of my supervisor encouraged us.”

For Adewumi, “Before you can make adire shirt you need to know some of the ingredients to use for the design such as cotton shirt, sulphur, soda, colours, warm water, rubber bands, nylon, pencil – to be used for sketching the design. The uniqueness and creativity we display are the keys that help to keep our business going. We also get quality materials to design with.

‘We can help eradicate unemployment through this’  

“I plan to establish a creative house of adire where there will be various sectors, where different adire styles will be made. Also, I will like to share my experience to help educate young people on how to be self-employed through adire making so as to eradicate unemployment in the society.”

While the love is the same, the story is quite different for Abeokuta-born 200-level student of police science education, Adeyemi Adebesin. He got introduced to tie and dye out of “so much love for the subject called ‘dyeing and bleaching’ while he was in secondary school.

Michael Babatunde on his own was a middleman between an adire designer and customers. A position he arrived at having bought and adorned different adire designs he had got from the designer. As a courier, he got tired of the late delivery and failure to meet customers’ satisfaction, hence, the need to start his own adire styling outfit.

‘How we make bags, shoes, notepad covers, ties and accessories from adire’

“We have adire which we make into bespoke wears, we make bags, shoes from adire, notepad covers, throw pillows, ties and accessories from adire; this is in line with our vision to become the number one promoter of adire worldwide.”

Taking adire beyond Nigeria

A final year student of the Department of Mass Communication, Johnson Oke, told Nigerian Tribune: “What distinguishes me is the fact that I don’t just do adire, I use the adire to make classic ties and other accessories.”

Oke attracted the attention of the wife of the Ogun State governor, Mrs. Bamidele Abiodun, when she bought three of his products during an exhibition held at the June 12 Cultural Centre to commemorate the 42nd World Tourism Day.

From findings, it is evident that adire entrepreneurs have devised different ways to style their favourite adire designs in order to suit their respective customers and ambassadors.

According to Binuyo, “We use the local designs to create international standard wearables. Apart from understanding the concept of local patterns and meaning, we blend this local taste with the recent trends in international standards to brew new designs, create patterns that fit global standards, both locally and internationally.”

Avalanche of challenges

Speaking further, he itemized the various challenges being faced by those in this line of business.

“The cost of chemicals is expensive when compared to the price people are offering for the product. Unavailability of quality cotton materials also affects this business. The closure of the borders, restrictions on importation, the high tariff on imported goods; all these make it difficult for upcoming designers like me to stand fit in the industry.

“The consumer attitude is one that we must improve on. At first, we find ourselves in an environment that values foreign goods over our locally made products,” he stated.

Stakeholders react

While explaining the idea behind the Adire Ogun Seal unveiled by the immediate past administration in the state, a former Commissioner for Culture and Tourism and later consultant to Senator Amosun, Yewande Amusan, said it was based on the feedback from different quarters to brand adire’.

“As you know, Senator Ibikunle Amosun while in office, supported adire and the use of adire. As you can see, we have gone to many countries, promoting adire originating from Ogun State. It’s part of our culture, so, it is important we own it and ensure that we preserve the trade and craft and of course, utilise it in various forms. The first thing that His Excellency did was for us to register the brand name – Adire Ogun 2015 – which clearly speaks for itself. In that, it is adire that is made in Ogun. Also, it gives the buyers some level of assurance that this will give a standard, just like we have Irish Linen, Egyptian Cotton and all other types of branded items, we have decided that Adire Ogun is something that will assist our people in ensuring that we have a certain standard introduced,” she stated.

When contacted by Nigerian Tribune, the director of MAPOLY Centre for Entrepreneurship Development (MAPCED), Dr Segun Aninkan, said: “Adire is a crucial means of heritage for the Egba. The uniqueness of adire cannot be overemphasized. So, if you now see students making adire, it is a great thing. We have people in school here that can easily train them. Some of our students are from Lagos, some from Ibadan and everywhere and when they learn it and take it back to where they are from, it is fantastic. Adire is a unique product.

“Last year, we were at an International Trade Fair at the IITA, Ibadan, we were all dressed in adire fabrics. And of all of the products we took there, it was adire that was more patronised and these adire fabrics were made by our students. We also introduced them to incubators. The Federal Government has some incubators we are liaising with. We asked the students to come and put down their names for any of the areas they can focus on and they will be trained free-of-charge.”

Director, Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies, FUNAAB, Professor Babatunde Adewumi, told Nigerian Tribune that: “One of our targets this year is to link up with organisations that will help us attend more exhibitions, shows and fairs for the department so that our students can attend with their products. We are working with the Department of Home Science and Management to achieve that. We want to use that to brand our students because in terms of the training and exposure, our students have it.

“Some of our students are now our key leaders for some of our programmes here, including the adire production, adire fashion designing and adire interior decoration. During our vacation training, about 15 to 20 per cent of our students showed interest in adire fabrics, including those who focused on the raw materials, production, interior decoration and fashion designing aspect of  the business.”