Akinwumi AkinkunmiThe household of the person who designed Nigeria’s nationwide flag have advised the BBC they’ve given up ready for a promised state funeral, a 12 months after he died.
As an alternative Taiwo Michael Akinkunmi, who died a 12 months in the past aged 87, goes to be buried this week in Oyo state, the place he lived.
Akinkunmi, recognized by many as “Mr Flag Man” and whose home was painted within the distinctive inexperienced and white colors of the nationwide flag, was a humble man.
However his son hopes that in his send-off, which Oyo state has agreed to fund, he will probably be remembered for the design that turned an emblem of a united Nigeria.
“We’ve got to offer him the befitting burial he deserves,” his son Akinwumi Akinkunmi advised the BBC Deal with Africa podcast.
Taiwo Akinkunmi at all times stated he was an unlikely flag designer. He entered a contest for a brand new design forward of Nigeria’s independence from the UK in October 1960.
On the time he was learning electrical engineering in London and had noticed a newspaper advert concerning the competitors.
In accordance with flag professional Whitney Smith, 3,000 designs had been submitted – “lots of nice complexity”.
However Akinkunmi’s was a easy affair, with equal green-white-green vertical stripes – and it changed the colonial flag that had included the British union jack and a six-pointed inexperienced star below a pink disk.
AFPAkinkunmi’s unique design included at its centre a pink solar surrounded by rays. This was meant as “as an emblem of divine safety and steerage”, Mr Smith wrote in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Nonetheless the solar was omitted by the committee, which awarded the then 23-year-old £100 (then price $280) for his profitable design.
Akinkunmi at all times stated his inspiration got here from his childhood as he had travelled and lived in varied elements of Nigeria.
Born in Ibadan within the south-west, now capital of Oyo state, he spent his early years within the north of the nation due to his dad and mom’ work. He grew up in what he stated was a cheerful polygamous household and was certainly one of his father’s 10 youngsters.
He returned to Ibadan to complete his schooling. He as soon as advised ThisDay journalist Funke Olade that his secondary faculty was like a “mini-Nigeria” because it had college students from everywhere in the nation.
Nigeria is dwelling to greater than 300 ethnic teams and whereas Africa’s most populous nation has no official faith, the nation is roughly divided between the primarily Muslim north and the largely Christian south, although many communities are blended.
For Akinkunmi the inexperienced in his flag symbolised the nation’s wealthy agricultural heritage, whereas the white represented peace and unity.
“It’s typical that Nigeria, like many different culturally various nations, selected a easy flag design. A extra complicated design may need explicitly honoured some ethnic and non secular teams whereas excluding others,” Mr Smith wrote.
Agriculture was at all times near Akinkunmi’s coronary heart and he was excited to return to Nigeria after independence to take up at a job with the Ministry of Agriculture, the place he labored as a civil servant till he retired in 1994.
However for a lot of his life only a few folks knew about his contribution to the nation, although wherever he lived he reportedly used to color the skin of his home inexperienced and white.
It was not till Nigeria celebrated its fiftieth 12 months of independence that he was recognised as certainly one of 50 distinguished Nigerians.
His son says an Oyo state politician later lobbied for him to be given a nationwide honour and pension – and in 2014 he was made an Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR), certainly one of Nigeria’s highest awards.
After Akinkunmi’s dying final 12 months, a senator sponsored a profitable movement that he be given a state burial.
Nonetheless, no plans have ever been made and as they waited, Akinkunmi’s household have been paying 2,000 naira ($1.30; £1.00) a day to maintain the physique at a morgue.
The flag designer’s son stated that in June they discovered that the humanities ministry’s Nationwide Institute for Cultural Orientation (Nico) had been directed to kind out the state funeral.
However aside from one telephone name, he stated the establishment had failed to speak any additional.
He feels ready any longer would simply sully his father’s identify.
That is when the Oyo state authorities determined to step in to fund the burial rites for the flag designer.
“My late father was an easy-going one who didn’t need something to tarnish his picture,” his son advised the BBC.
“He was nicely introduced up, he was a really clever man, and an excellent particular person that everybody wished to affiliate with,” he added.
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Getty Photographs/BBC
