In conjunction with exercise OE23, the NAVEUR-NAVAF Band
visited the Lagos Art Gallery as part of a series of local community events
that seeks to deepen community relations between the United States and Nigeria.
The gallery was created to enhance African heritage, help rural women earn a
living, and encourage youth coping with negative influence.
The Nigerian Navy is hosting OE23, the largest multinational
maritime exercise in Western and Central Africa. OE23, one of three
NAVAF-facilitated regional exercises, provides collaborative opportunities for
African and U.S. forces, and international partners to address shared
transnational maritime concerns.
While visiting the Gallery, the Band performed an assortment
of classical and traditional songs from their Maritime Winds Quintet and
Topside Brass Band. The Gallery’s staff also allowed the band to wear
traditional garments representative of the three major ethnic groups within
Nigeria: Hausa, Egbo, and Yoruba. The performances honoured the history and
legacy of African culture as well as its long-lived instruments.
Musician third Class Michael Wallace, a drummer in the brass
band, described the experience as liberating.
“As a drummer and an overall musician, being in the
motherland is a very sobering experience. Seeing music in its raw form and
looking at it in a broader perspective, it all makes sense. The rhythms that
you hear from the lower notes and the higher notes, and seeing it evolve to the
current form of jazz today is really special.”
Performing at the gallery gave Wallace time to reflect on his first trip to Africa, when he visited Ghana and bought his cherished djembe drum. He said: “I cried the first time that I came to Africa -getting an instrument from the motherland, the source, you can not beat that. Coming here to the art gallery, where we have memorials for our ancestors that were lost fighting the fight for racial equality is really an experience that you will never ever forget.”
The musicians included Jesse King Buga, a popular Nigerian
artiste, who joined the band in song and dance. During an impromptu session,
Buga also stood in as the band’s conductor and taught them a traditional Yoruba
piece.
Although Mama Nike, as she’s fondly called, grew up in a
village in Nigeria, she credits her early success to the United States, where
she said she was encouraged to bring something back to Africa that would
benefit her people.
Speaking at the event, Okundaye said: “Music is art and art
is life, so the two of them march together. Art is our heritage. If God ever
gives me the opportunity, one day, I would like to create a place where artists
can meet their own voice. I’m an artist myself, but I want to thank the
American government for giving me an opportunity to travel to the United States
in 1974 to teach the artists in the Haystack Mountain Craft School. So, it was
my first breakthrough.”
NAVAF’s ongoing maritime security cooperation with African
partners focuses on overcoming the challenges of maritime safety and security
in the region. The exercise takes place across five zones in the southern
Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Guinea – stretching from the West African island of
Cabo Verde to the Central African shores of Angola, including the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Economic Community of Central
African States (ECCAS).
The U.S. shares a common interest with African partner
nations in ensuring security, safety, and freedom of navigation on the waters
surrounding the continent, because these waters are critical for Africa’s prosperity
and access to global markets.
For more than 80 years, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-U.S. Naval
Forces Africa (NAVEUR-NAVAF) has forged strategic relationships with allies and
partners, leveraging a foundation of shared values to preserve security and
stability.
Headquartered in Naples, Italy, NAVEUR-NAVAF operates U.S.
naval forces in the U.S. European Command (USEUCOM) and U.S. Africa Command
(USAFRICOM) areas of responsibility. U.S. Sixth Fleet is permanently assigned
to NAVEUR-NAVAF, and employs maritime forces through the full spectrum of joint
and naval operations.
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