The Ladi Kwali Pottery Center located in Suleja was originally known as the Abuja Pottery Training Center, when it was established by the Nigerian Colonial Government in 1951. The genesis of its establishment was the colonial administration’s desire for a home-grown industry to supply the middle class Nigerian demand for glazed tableware suitable for European-style meals and drinks. It was a genuine desire to promote its local production as a substitute to imported products.
Micheal Cardew an English Studio potter was given the assignment of selecting an area suitable for a pottery training center. He toured the Northern Region in November and December 1950 with the view to selecting an area suitable for the center.
He was able as a colonial officer to call upon an impressive network of existing knowledge to help him. Local potters, district heads, administrators, miners, geologists, educationists, missionaries and all sort of people who knew about soil structure, the transport systems, the fuel, the traditions and other factors he had to consider. He was also allowed to use the furnaces of the Amalgamated Tin Mines in Jos in deciding where to site the Centre.
Since pre-colonial era the Abuja region is popularly known for traditional pot making as could be seen variously displayed at Giri along the Kaduna-Lokoja Road. This is encouraged by the type of local clay the area is naturally endowed with. Michael Cardew’s report selected Abuja as the best suitable for such purpose. It was the beauty and artistry of the traditional pottery that made Abuja to be selected by the colonial administration. It set up an intermediate technology project, a rural industry using the wheel, glazes and high-firing in the European studio pottery tradition.
Mr. Cardew started as a senior pottery Officer with a small team of Local workmen to build a new Pottery Training Centre. Despite the fact that there were always more men than women working with Cardew, but it turned out that the Abuja Pottery Training Center’s star potter was a woman, Ladi Kwali, whose basic skill and genius were fully developed without formal education before she joined in 1954. While he introduced wheels and kilns to the center Cardew also learnt about traditional firing methods and ornamentation.
Ladi Kwali’s ornamentation skills became more sophisticated over the years, her fame blossomed in the world of pottery beyond the shores of the land with her work being exhibited in Europe in 1958, 1959 and 1962, and her pottery was also displayed during Nigeria’s independence celebrations in 1960. Among the countries she visited were the UK, USA, Germany, Canada and Italy.
She was rated one of the best potters in the world, at an exhibition she attended in Italy in 1981 known as CONEX ‘81. Despite her inability to speak the English Language, but as an excellent demonstrator she was able to effectively deliver lecturers through interpreters at home and in many European and American Universities and Institutes as a guest lecturer, on how she improved her traditional pot making skills to world standard. She was a recipient of the merit awards of the OBE, OON and an Honorary Doctorate Degree of Letters from the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria.
Since the early 90s the center was abandoned and it became dilapidated. The people that mostly grasp its eminence, not only the historical significance, but the tremendous potentials of the Pottery Center for attraction of tourists and economic benefits, are mostly the local indigenes. In 2017, the then Minister of State for Solid Mineral, Tpl. Abubakar Bawa Bwari, by virtue of being a local indigene, with the knowledge of the tremendous potentials and treasures being abandoned explored a window created through a World Bank facility under his Ministry.
The World Bank conducted its independent search and became interested based on the historical findings and got convinced on the economic viability of the proposal. The Word Bank-assisted Mineral Sector Support for Economic Diversification Project (MinDiver) under the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development was engaged and conducted an Environmental Impact survey on the project of reviving the Ladi Kwali Pottery Center.
Subsequently the structure was renovated and reformed. It was subsequently handed over to the Niger State Government. Unfortunately, that was the end of the story. Going by the disturbing antecedent, it was the previous State Governments that earlier rendered the Center moribund and sold it out. But the initiative of the former Minister, Bawa Bwari, made the immediate past Administration to reclaim the Center for the actualization of the World Bank project
After the completion of the First stage, the next stage would have been the engagement of qualified resource persons and budget provision for the acquisition of the necessary equipment for the purpose of revival of the old glory of the Center. Nothing was made since after the handover. On the other hand, the Suleja Emirate Council will be excited to receive the center from the State Government and manage it to attain the desired objective, in line with the World Bank objectives.
In addition, other viable proposals are the introduction of ceramic industrial courses by the surrounding Universities; these are the FUT Minna and the State owned IBB and AA Kure Universities. The center has the capacity to be used as a training Center affiliated to these institutions. The Ahmadu Bello University explore that opportunity in the past.
These would provide the grounds for obtaining approval for the MinDiver II project anytime it is approved for takeoff.
