The Struggle To Stay Creative In Nigeria
“Oh Dear!, they’ve cut power again”
The above statement forms just a tiny part of the immense struggle that an average Nigerian creative has to deal with in carrying out various activities.
In recent years, there’s been an increase in the number of ‘actively participating’ creatives in the Nigerian space; creatives whose skills cut across photography, handcrafts, content creation, visual design, illustration & concept art, digital art, brand identity design, UI design and so on, the list is seemingly endless.
Who is a creative?
Anyone who possesses the capacity to come up with something novel (even if it’s an improvement on existing concepts) is termed a creative. Creatives possess a curious mind, an innovative spirit and they usually leverage on the influence of various things to do what they do best ‘CREATE’.
In the Nigerian sphere, being a creative isn’t all that rosy. It comes with its perks and various letdowns.
These may be imposed by various factors which may include society, family or the entire country at large, hence giving the average creative in Nigeria slightly harder obstacles to overcome in order to launch their creative journey.
Different creative niches experience challenges peculiar to them only, for example, a visual designer or digital artist may cry out for constant power supply while the concept artist doesn’t employ the use of electricity in order to create.
Viewing this from my own eyes as a brand identity and product designer I’d say, our challenges are found in a lot of things.
Firstly there’s the struggle to fit in seamlessly with our families and have them understand us; trust me, one of the most difficult things to achieve is for our families to accept us and not always refer to us as “Arinze that’s always pressing his laptop“ or “Dami that’s always keeping to herself”.
This situation often leads to a bad feeling for the creative and in some cases, they’re forced to abandon their skill just to suit family standards.
Secondly, there’s the issue of gaining international trust. With the ongoing rave of internet fraud and Nigerians being blacklisted in major countries, the average creative in Nigeria is at a very high risk of not being accepted in the international community or being hired by foreign-based firms just because of their nationality.
Lastly, there’s the ‘value’ problem. Only a select few of the Nigerian populace want to pay good money for value; this results in creatives being underpaid for their work. A lot more problems exist for creative in Nigeria but that’ll be a story for another time…so in essence, dear Nigerian creative, hang in there and keep doing you.
Let the love for your skill keep you going on blue days and also make you smile on better days.
Keep growing fam!
