Joy Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko
Joy Ifeoma Nroli Nwosu Lo-Bamijoko (born 27 August 1940) is a Nigerian ethnomusicologist, choral conductor, music critic and soprano. A music teacher at the University of Lagos, she promoted Bel canto performances in Nigeria to develop interest in the opera and Italian style of singing. She has performed over 50 solo or group concerts in Nigeria and a few other countries. In 1968, she published the book Cinema e Africa for Aracne editrice, a piece about Africans in Cinema.
Quotes
edit- When I was hired as Lecturer II by the University of Lagos in April, 1975, I applied to Radio Nigeria for a transfer to Unilag, but was denied a transfer. My then boss vowed that the only way I could leave was to resign.
- I came to know about this because, the Ambassador himself, who knew me quite well because I was a regular performer at the Embassy, sent his driver to Unilag to pick me up and take me to the embassy. There he told me about this man who came to him with a lady, and tried to talk him into signing his translation of my credentials and assessment as correct.
- I want you to see this.” I told him handing him the letter. While he read it I watched his face for reactions. He put the letter down quietly on his table, stood up and offered me his hand and said, “Congratulations colleague.
- I left the embassy in shock and determined to follow the Ambassador’s advice. Luck was on my side. It was 1977, and FESTAC was just winding down, when the US embassy in Lagos offered a number of exchange visitor scholarships to some Nigeria artistes, and I was one of them. I took the opportunity of my visit to the US to apply and audition for schools.
- Recently, one of my past students, who now lives in the US, came all the way from Philadelphia to be at my birthday celebration. Her first question to me was, “Ma, why did you leave? We all needed you and you left.” I gave her a simple answer that time, telling her that I left because there was nothing else left for me to do. My department was scrapped and we were rendered redundant. My colleagues, some younger than me were dead, if I had stayed, I don’t know what would have become of me.
- When I returned from Michigan in 1982, I looked forward to a peaceful tenure at my job. My credential wahala had been put to rest. I was also hoping that advancement in my job will be a done deal. I still performed with the Laz Ekwueme choral, but I took time off to set up my band and do my own thing. My work with the choral diminished as my work with my own band increased. I set up a children‘s choir also, and that kept me even more busy, so busy that I stopped singing with the choral.
- Laz kicked the door to my office open a day after his choral sang at an embassy without me, and warned me that I was swimming in dangerous water if I missed another of his concerts. There and then I resolved to leave his choral for good. He developed the habit of not knocking at my office door, but kicking it open anytime he wanted to talk to me about his choir.
- One time, he told me that I should know that the right hand should wash the left hand for peace to reign. I reminded him that when I returned from Michigan to Nigeria to do my field work, I almost jeopardized my field work because he insisted that I must travel with his choir to Ghana and to different state of Nigeria. I pleaded with him to allow me some time to develop my own credits so that I can be promoted. He told me that he decided who got promoted or not, and that it did not depend on how much credit I can accumulate, but on how well I serve him. My God! I could not reason with the man.
- Anyway, I distanced myself from him even further, minded my own business, and worked hard to write and get published. When I thought I was ready to present myself for promotion, I sent in my application, and copies of my work. He laughed at me and responded with a very denigrating memo in which he trivialized all my work, then he personally brought me a copy of his memo, and told me as he left that unless I did as he said, I should forget to ever be promoted.
- When Professor Ibidapo Obe, the new VC finally awarded me my retirement, they decided to go by the one year leave that I was originally awarded, and not by the three years that I was entitled. I wrote and presented all the documentation to show that I followed the regulation and did not default even by one day after my leave, papers showing that I returned, that I notified the VC of my return, and had no reply whatsoever from him. In other words, I was asking them to start my retirement from November, 1999, and not from November 1997. We are now at an impasse, me waiting for their reply, and they waiting perhaps for my death. I have already instructed my kids that if I die before this is resolved, they should continue to pursue it even at court level. After all the nasty treatment I received, they have to also rub me of my entitlement? My story is beginning to sound like a soap opera, but that is my story. I lived and survived it only because God was on my side.
- On my Dissertation Book Cover, there is something I think you should mention in the book. It is about my dissertation. Before I went to Michigan, I did an extensive research on Igbo folktales, with the intention of writing my dissertation on the importance of folktales and folk song in music education. When I arrived Michigan, in my excitement, I mentioned my plan to a fellow student, a Ghanaian, who was there before me, and had been struggling to get his proposal approved. He quickly stole the idea from me. So I had to go looking for another topic. I wanted my studies to have relevance with my culture, so I started praying, asking God to give me a topic. As I was praying, the Lord was pointing me to the huge book by Sachs & Hornbostel on “Instruments of of World. I was then taking courses in Ethnomusicology and so was familiar with the works of these two men.
- I started taking a closer look, on their work on African instruments, and discovered that all African instruments were classified as idiophones. I disagreed deeply with this lumping together of instruments from the so-called developing world. But I could not attack Sachs & Hornbostel, giants in world music. So I decided to research how my culture, the Igbo culture, classifies music instruments and it was an eye opening experience. The Lord gave me everything I wrote in that book, it could not have come from me. The findings were such a bombshell that I had to change the Head of my doctoral committee, before I could go on with my dissertation.
- As soon as I returned to Nigeria, I lifted the whole classification section of my dissertation and published it with Nigeria Magazine. I wanted my colleagues to see what I discovered. Of course, it did not go down too well with Laz. He quickly told me that Nigeria Magazine was not a scholarly magazine. The same year, African Music Magazine discovered my article, and requested and published it.
