By Ademola Adekusibe
The recent exhibition by Uzo Njoku titled “An Owanbe Exhibition” has stirred a storm online, and rightly so. What some may dismiss as harmless artistic expression has in fact reawakened an old conversation about cultural misappropriation, erasure, and the persistent refusal to give Yorùbá culture the respect it deserves.
Let us be clear: Owanbe is not just a word, not just a theme. It is a cultural institution rooted in Yorùbá society. To misspell it as Owambe is not a minor error. It is a distortion of history, identity, and meaning. For a people who have struggled for centuries to preserve their language, dress, music, and rituals against erasure, even a single word carries weight.
Equally troubling is the attempt to frame Yorùbá expressions as “Lagos party culture” or, worse, as some vague form of “Nigerian culture.” Owanbe belongs to the Yorùbá. It lives in our traditions of aso ebi, our drumming, our food, our communal joy, and our grandeur. To call it “Nigerian” blurs ownership. To call it “Lagos” waters it down. This is how cultures are stripped of their roots until only hollow imitations remain.
What angers many Yorùbá voices online is not that an Igbo artist showcased Yorùbá patterns. Art can be inspired by many influences. The outrage is that she used Yorùbá symbols, names, and textiles, stamped them with non-Yorùbá inscriptions, and branded an entire exhibition without acknowledging the true custodians of that heritage. That is not homage. It is theft.
And worse, it is deliberate. Choosing to write foreign words on Yorùbá adire while still attaching the Owanbe name is no accident. It is intentional hybridization, a quiet attempt to plant the idea that Owanbe is no longer uniquely Yorùbá but “Nigerian.” This is cultural theft by stealth.
We must not deceive ourselves. Culture is power. Naming is power. Ownership is power. If we allow Owanbe, gele, adire, bata and other Yorùbá treasures to be stripped of credit, then in one generation our children will be told these things were simply “Nigerian.” They will not know which people created them, refined them, and sustained them. That erasure will be complete.
Some may dismiss the outrage as overreaction. History proves otherwise. Jazz, reggae, hip hop, even African hairstyles were all misappropriated, rebranded, and resold without proper acknowledgment. Yorùbá cannot afford to let Owanbe suffer the same fate.
The media and cultural institutions must also bear responsibility. It is their duty to properly situate heritage in its rightful place. Just as Igbo masquerades are never called “Nigerian masquerades,” Owanbe must never be reduced to a generic Lagos or Nigerian party. Precision matters. Culture is identity. Identity must never be compromised.
The solution is simple. Artists outside Yorùbá land who wish to draw from Yorùbá culture must show humility and respect by crediting their source. Anything less is exploitation. Yorùbá institutions, from cultural groups to the media, must speak with one voice to defend against creeping erasure.
This controversy is a wake-up call. If Yorùbá people do not tell their own stories, others will tell them carelessly, wrongly, or opportunistically. We must not allow that. Owanbe is ours. It is Yorùbá. And it must never be taken from us.
