By Collins Nnabuife
A renowned Artist, Professor Bruce Onobrakpeya has asked the National Assembly to promulgate abspecial legislation and policies to protect children with special needs from societal abuse.
Professor Onobrakpeya made the call at an Art exhibition of Kanye Okeke, (a child diagnosed of autism) to mark this year’s World Autism Day.
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He warned against further stigmatization of such children living with special needs, like autism, saying that the autism persons suffer a lot of discrimination and mental abuse from the society, particularly those around them.
The exhibition organized at Tropicana, Abuja titled: Orisun: The Master and Prodigy was to draw awareness to autism and proffer solutions to the health challenges it poses.
The Art expert highlighted the need for special attention and care for autism persons which he said should be the concern of the society.
He insisted that society must begin now to give adequate attention to the children with special needs.
Professor Onobrakpeya therefore called for special legislations and policies to be put in place to protect them from further abuse.
According to him, one of the fundamental ways to fight autism is through public enlightenment and advocacy.
He said art can readily be the point of capturing the attention of children living with autism in particular, and because it is a powerful tool for special orientation and transformation.
While urging parents not to push their children so much he encouraged them to allow them grow normally, noting that autism children should be made to attend some resorts either for pleasure or learning.
’‘I want to ask parents to be very careful about driving the children who are so very different. Don’t deny the child his childhood. Because he is successful, because he is a genius, you push him too fast, this is wrong. We have heard from people like Michael Jackson, the society stole his childhood from him, and what he should do as a child he did not do it.
‘’We will want young people to look around environment and take inspiration from it, go back to your villages, develop them, use art to bring in job to the society’’.
‘While touring the works of Kanye Okeke (the host artist) an Autism child that became artist, Prof. Onobrakpeya said ‘‘what Kanye is doing is a seed sown on a very fertile ground, considering his condition and age. He has supportive parents, the subconscious state in him is what is coming out to see and enjoy. He’s going to continue and produce better things”, he said.
Speaking on the healing power of art, Professor Onobrakpeya said ‘’ Art has the power of making it possible to forget the disturbing things in the environment, as soon as you face the art of some nice idea about the environment, nothing else matters and that itself has a healing power. I have interacted with Doctor Lambo who has the “Arrow Hospital” he used art as a therapy, he introduced painting to his patients at the hospital and that helps the patients and that is what art does.
On the economic value of art, the Art specialist said at a time when Nigerians are investing in other sectors like Bitcoin, real estate, oil and politics, the gallery of art work on display would soon begin to impact art lovers, art community and humanity in general across the breadth and width of the FCT, Abuja.
‘’A time would come when foreigners would come to Abuja to visit this place “Orisun Gallery” and that would galvanize the economic possibility of this metropolis, the gallery itself is a revenue earner, an entertainment centre, it’s also an employer of labour, an education centre, there are so many things the gallery can do and it’s doing right now, it’s a blessing. Oil is a commodity that can be exhausted but art can never be exhausted’’.
Speaking earlier, the Director of Orisun Art Gallery, Dr. Adebola Adetunmbi said the Gallery was named Orisun because they belief Almighty God, the source of all things gives capacity to create.
‘‘The name Orisun is a Yoruba name that means a source, so we believe that the source of all art is the almighty God. It is the almighty God that gives us the capacity to create, and that is why we have named this place Orisun, in honour of the creativity that God has put in all of us.
“This particular occasion is in collaboration of the world Autism month of April, where there is an opportunity to celebrate those of us who are very special indeed; because the way we communicate is different from the way everybody communicate and we can see the glorious work that God has been able to create.
‘’I want to experience art and to experience the great diversity of culture and art that we have in Nigeria and West Africa and all over Africa. That is why we have pride to create this kind of environment and that is our sole purpose.’’
Speaking on his experiences, the father of Kanye, Mr. Tagbo Okeke said:’’ For those of us who don’t know what the world Autism is, after this ceremony it will be good idea to find out what it is all about. Because it is slowly and gradually becoming an epidemic. When we discovered our son Henry had autism, we did not know what it was at all, painstakingly, it took a lot of time to find out what it was and deal with it. The Lord has been so gracious to have introduced Henry to art. Now, we have Henry all over the place.’’