Bida youths find new life in brass work

In Bida the youths tell the story of the age-long conservative attachment of a people through artistic expression in copper and zinc.

In a mud hut located in Tswata Mukun area of Bida town in Niger State, five-year-old Suleiman Bako Mukun steered a small bicycle wheel attached to a bellow to fire the forge. 

He sat astride the bellows with his outstretched right hand in constant motion. His job is mainly to ensure uninterrupted supply of air to the base of the fire to aid combustion. Gradually a yellow ember, the end product of the consistent air supply to propel the furnace with enough temperature to melt an iron emerged. 

Sixteen-year-old Usman Yakubu then took over from there as he placed the raw material, an aluminium stump, in a special basing suspended on the yellowy ember. 

The brass stump gradually turned into liquid after being heated for some minutes. The melted liquid is then purified through filtering under the supervision of Isah Bako Mukun, a Fine Arts graduate from the College of Education, Minna. The molten brass is later beaten into the required shape and size over an anvil.

 Usman then lifted the aluminum onto a tool called Etusi and started hitting it into a shape using Patagi (a small hammer). From time to time, the item was returned to the fire to soften it for further shaping. 

Gradually a spoon-like shape began to emerge using a caving bowl to mould it to perfection. Then the smoothening process commenced with a filer, while some amount of palm oil or kerosene was applied to give it a shining silvery look. 

The artist then went ahead to engrave on the product. Isah said the prices of the spoon varied according to the quality and design. He said the Angbovo was more expensive with each costing between N500 and N600, while the Evozhiko was the least, costing N250 each.

 He said he just got a contract to produce N2, 000 pieces of Angbovo for a local wedding as souvenirs. The names of the bride and groom were intricately engraved on each piece with the approved design. 

Two houses away in the same Tswata Mukun, 22-year-old Yahaya Gimba, a student of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Bida; a former councillorship candidate on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and a teacher in one of the schools in the ancient town; Malam Umar Uma and Shehu Alhaji Shehu were seen working on different brass products despite their different callings.

Outside the perimetre of their workshop, different products of silver and gold such as boxes, kettles, water cups, souvenirs, bangles, walking sticks, trays, toys and a host of other products were on display. 

Like the situation in Tswata Mukun, the beautiful brass works on display in Gbonugbofu and Tswatako areas also tell the story of a conservative attachment of a people to an age-long occupation. 

And as a vocation which was handed from generation to generation for centuries, the youths are the driving force. The task from the start to the finishing is no doubt a gruelling one for the aged even with improved forging devices.

Isah acknowledged that even with the supposed “modern” bellows, life did not in any way improve for the young apprentices. He also said the elderly were involved in aspects of the job that did not require much energy, and that they normally got to the workshops early and disappeared before the sun was up. “More so, the heat from the furnace is always unbearable for them,” he noted. 

Kids in Bida are nurtured early to inherit the trade in what looks like a succession arrangement. At five, Suleiman is already learning the ropes as an apprentice, while at 16; Usman already has the grasp of the rudiments of the vocation, even as he is also aspiring to be a doctor. 

The trade does not in any way affect one’s career choice, because Isah would rather study Fine Arts for a degree to add value to the age-long vocation introduced in Nupe land in the 18th Century during the reign of Etsu Usman Zaki. 

Our correspondent encountered Dr. Abdullahi Masaba, a top management staff in one of the federal agencies in Abuja, in one of the shops in Tswatako, explaining a piece of work to a guest.

Dr. Masaba did not have time to spare for an interview as he was billed to return to Abuja immediately; neither did he allow his photograph to be taken.  

However, he acknowledged that the age-long vocation saw him through his education, at least up to masters’ level. “I obtained my PhD after I secured a federal government job”, he further explained. Like for all others who the trade serves as a life compass, he did not only want it to be sustained, but also called on the state and federal governments to integrate the works through skill acquisition initiatives, and also find a way of adding value to the products. 

He explained how brass basins and plates gained popularity as decorative wares for the homes of the rich around the world in the 16th Century. 

He said when silver and gold later replaced brass as decorative metals, it found other uses in household wares. “It later became a major material for the manufacturing of surveying, astronomy and navigation instruments, amongst others,” he explained. 

Isah also tells the story of how his forbears came about the trade. “Our forefathers migrated from Egypt with the trade and back then our forebears were involved in the fabrication of different types of metals, but they later discovered brass.” 

He said it had become the major household vocation for the people since then. However, like the product itself, there is no deliberate plan to source the raw material locally through mining even though the non-ferrous industrial metal containing a group of minerals which include copper, lead, zinc, tin and aluminum abound in Nigeria at varying concentrations and in different forms. The Bida brass makers have to recycle damaged vehicles, aluminum materials, household utensils, amongst others.

“Assembling and transporting raw materials to Bida is often a difficult task and it is expensive,” he explained, while appealing to the Federal Government to step in.

Dr. Abdullahi on his part, urged the federal government through its various agencies to exploit brass beyond its current status of decorative wares and household utensils for advanced and scientific use.

As the brass makers long for new innovations to enhance their works, the struggle to break even in the absence of a ready market for their products has also been intense. For now, most of the patronage is through wedding ceremonies where souvenirs are contracted. But even that is restricted, mostly to Bida and environs, where “brass price” is a customary requirement in a wedding. 

What is more, there are few horse owners and riders coming for the bridles and saddles; so also are the massa (a Hausa snack) makers who desire frying pans, or people who want trophies, jewelry, amongst others. 

Isah also said brass makers sometimes took advantage of international exhibition and trade fairs to showcase their wares. “We have been to the United Arab Emirates and Egypt where we came tops,” he disclosed, but that the effort hardly translated to enduring empowerment for them. “Market is generally dull”, he lamented.