Welcome to BusinessDay, Mr. Duke Igbinedion, but can our readers meet you and get to know more about you, Sir?
My name is Duke Igbinedion, as you already know, I am a product of Auchi Polytechnic (now Federal Polytechnic), Auchi, School of Art and Design. I am a sculptor by profession but have grown to become an artist with multiple and vast areas of incursion, if you like.
Did you say multiple and vast areas of incursion?
Yes. The mind of the artist is always at work hence the multiple and vast areas of incursion… it is not enough to stay solely as a sculptor, if you are really a sculptor worth the onions, you put your brain always to work and think every day how to improve things, how to create things, how to make things better, how to leave the world a better place than you met it. That is the spirit behind the multiple and vast areas of incursion.
What have you done on this multiple and vast areas of incursion, as you have said, beyond being a sculptor, or first, what have you done in the past that may interest our readers?
Beyond reeling out a list of my works, this is quite unprofessional as some of those works are in the private homes of individuals and corporates, one that readily comes to mind is the 50-feet high sculptural work at the Ceremonial Plaza of The National Assembly, Abuja. My signature is there as DIVAS (an acronym for Duke Igbinedion Visual Arts Scenta). That job is called THE MANDATE. You cannot claim to have gone to the National Assembly complex if you have not seen that work.
You have another project (or child) you are nurturing; what is this new project?
It is not just one project; it is a lot of projects and involves games invention. Yes, I am now into invention go games.
Games invention; why games invention, and what kind of games
Games invention because that is where my talent takes me to and besides, there have to be alternatives on how people recreate and enjoy themselves. We seem too boxed in by the existing games and when you talk of games, what readily comes to mind is football, football and football, especially in Nigeria where there is a bundle of talents that need to be given diverse opportunities. That is why I came up with the game QWIVAS.
QWIVAS, that sounds strange
Sure! It is strange, and that is why it is QWIVAS.
So what is QWIVAS?
QWIVAS is a nine-person versus nine-person game played on a CANVAS with the instrument called the RHOMBO which is BLONGED through a FORTE to score a QWIVOO.
Among the QWIVANDOS (players of the game) are the PALLO, PHILOSOFAS (EAGLES), STALLIONS (HORSES), AND THE BASERS (THE LIONS), with the PERO as the central umpire.
Please take it one at a time. What did you say QWIVAS is?
The game QWIVAS is played as a team game between nine people in each team with an instrument called THE RHOMBO. You may call it throw in the layman’s language, but in the game, it is called BLONG into or through what I call a FORTE and a successful BLONG gets you a QWIVOO. The players and fans of the game are called QWIVANDOS and among the players are the PALLO, PHILOSOFAS (EAGLES), STALLIONS (HORSES), and the BASERS (THE LIONS). The PERO is the central umpire. The ground on which the game is played is called the CANVAS.
All these sound quite strange, but how did you come about these words and what do they mean; I mean, can you describe the game the more to enable our readers get a clearer picture of what you are pushing out to the public. What would anybody who is interested in the game get that is different from other games?
The game being hereby introduced is a game packed with action that elicits mobility, a game that creates great excitement and entertainment, a game approved by the learned and the noble, a game that improves intelligence, a game for all ages, a game that is played with the RHOMBO – the most dynamic game instrument in the world, a game that pierces the long-known games and sets its own marks, a game that is played with the precision of Divinity, the aero-dynamism of the eagle and the aggression of the lion, a game that elicits boldness, agility and the spirit of a conqueror, a game from the ancient city of Benin, the cradle of black civilization, a game for Nigeria, Africa and the world…
Take it easy, please. I know artists celebrate creativity and the next masterpiece. What is your vision in going into games invention and what other games do you have in your kitty?
The concept, design, registers of the game are all exclusive to me and I am passionate about this invention as well as its potentials to alter the alter the universal sporting firmament, as well as give the economy of Nigeria the needed push to international reckoning. If you talk about vision in its true concept, I have the vision that one day, there will be a national festival of all invented in Nigeria games, and this can happen, and it should happen.
Can you imagine the quantum resources that will be tapped into the national economy if such a festival happens when we can actualise a dream of making Nigeria in particular and Africa a hub of games invention and development, games equipment manufacture and game personnel development and export? It is instructive that at the last National Sports Festival hosted by Edo State, almost 90 percent of the games on parade are foreign. Do you envision the enormity of resources that go to those countries from where those games originated? We play a lot of football in Nigeria but do we manufacture any of the equipment used for playing the game? And is it not instructive that even until we have a foreign coach for football, Nigerian fans don’t consider the government as serious about developing the game? Shouldn’t we benefit more by trying local alternatives which we can develop and export? That is my vision with QWIVAS!
I don’t know the source of your confidence about this game and its potentials is, but one could guess that before you came this far, you must have done a lot of home work. What did you find?
Oh! Yes, for the avoidance of doubt, the unique selling points of the game include, but are not limited to: the game has a popular appeal to both males and females; it attracts high target audience; the game is loved and played mostly by the youths who form the majority in the age bracket segments; it is a novel game very new, attracting attention and has lots of positives for schools, colleges and sports development-individuals and organisations, and the game if well managed and handled could serve as a new discovery to international sports or events. And beyond that, the game – QWIVAS – has the potentials to engender a giant industrial complex in Nigeria for the production of the equipment, kits, among others.
You started off by saying that you are a games inventor and you have been talking so much about QWIVAS. Are there any other…?
Yes, I have another which is called is DI-MOBILE QUANTUM STADIUM. You can call it stadium on wheels. It is a platform on which can be played as many as a hundred Games some of which are QUANTUM BALLUSTICKS BRONZE, GEEDTARRWS etc. Some of the purposes of DI-MOBILE QUANTUM STADIUM is to provide an alternative for sporting, especially for organizations and entities including private schools, hotels, gymnasium and private residences that have space constraints but can still enjoy the same privileges as that that have ample space.
Seeing the picture of this QWIVAS game and DI-MOBILE QUANTUM STADIUM, it is obvious that you must have invested much resource into getting them this far. How have you been coping with bankrolling them?
Investing much resource seems to be an understatement. I can say I have invested my life because it takes a lot of sacrifices to get from where you are to where you really want to be. As a matter of fact, everything I get from friends, relatives and from the work I do as a sculptor and painter, go almost hundred percent into perfecting these games.
If you think of me inventing the game, developing the equipment, training the players, going to schools and organizations to exhibit what I have invented and putting teams together to play against themselves, then you appreciate the enormity of resources being invested into what has come to be a game changer in the Nigerian sporting firmament.
So what are you looking at now?
I am looking at the future; I am looking at the potentials of these games as the game-changers for the Nigeria economy; I am looking at giving Nigerian youths another opportunity to be useful to self and country; I am looking at the giant industrial complex that these games could engender if corporates like yours key into this vision by adopting a team and making this game competitive; I am looking at the quantum leap these games could give the Nigerian economy and image when these games go competitive and when some Nigerian youths are flown abroad to showcase these games to the international audience.
Apart from inventing games, is there any other thing you do?
Games invention is the new passion but beyond that, I do a lot of painting and hope to be able to exhibit some of them someday, and it is a new area I am venturing into which is called digital painting; I will show you some samples, but I cannot stop being passionate about my games because one painting goes into somebody’s private collection and that could be that, but these games cannot be hidden for too long and a lot of people will be involved and positively impacted when they get out of obscurity.
•Culled from the BusinessDay newspaper