*No Nigerian cartoonist has parodied Nigerian leaders past and present like Mike Etim Bassey Asukwo (Mike Asukwo E.B.), the Chief editorial cartoonist of Business Day.
The present president of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari probably doesn’t look forward to Asukwo’s satirical cartoons Mike has produced about him and so also other Nigerian political leaders. It may have been a different matter if Buhari was in the days of his first leadership, a military man.
When I then did cartoons of Buhari as a military head of state, I was always having at the back of my mind the notion that he was coming for me.
No one is immune to Mike’s strokes. He has been consistently comical about Nigeria’s political and socio-economic issues. I got hold of a book compilation which Mike signed for me and have all been published in Nigeria’s Business Day, an answer to Financial issues and banking in Nigeria, just like the UK’s Financial Times newspaper.
Asukwo (pronounced Asu-kwoor), cartoonist, painter, designer, and sculptor who at present is the current President of Cartoonists Association of Nigeria CARTAN, grew up wanting to be an artist and he was able to get into the iconic Yaba College of Technology in Lagos where he studied art.
Mike Asukwo uses his art to highlight situations and conditions the masses find themselves in present-day Nigeria and that can be seen through the strokes of his cartoons. Initially, he was drawing his cartoons in black and white before switching to colour. Mike sees his satire as a peace-making tool. The book is a collection of recurring issues in power, identity and resistance. Carefully selected, the book provides clear perception into events that have shaped and which is still shaping the socio-economic and political history of Africa’s most populous nation.
This voluminous book, Laughter in the mirror is an Asukwo ace and a must for coffee tables for Nigerians in the diaspora and Asukwo cartoon enthusiasts and fans alike. It’s his first and the year cannot run out without a book, which when you grab hold of, you will be reluctant to put down. It’s all in colour.
Tel: Business Day – 002348091607399/0023481015993551
TAYO Fatunla is an award-winning Nigerian Comic Artist, Editorial Cartoonist, Writer and Illustrator. He is a graduate of the prestigious Kubert School, in New Jersey, US. and recipient of the 2018 ECBACC Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award for his illustrated OUR ROOTS creation and series – Famous people in Black History – He participated in the UNESCO’s Cartooning In Africa forum held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the Cartooning Global Forum in Paris, France.
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