VISUAL ARTS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION FOR MAN’S DEPENDENCE AND NATION BUILDING

Abstract

Before the emergence of oil and gas exploration in Nigeria, multiplicity of human engagements such as visual arts have sustained the economy of the Nigerian past, but today, the economy is domiciled at the frontiers of oil and gas. This situation has caused enormous challenges to the Nigerian nation building. The study investigated visual arts and entrepreneurship education for man’s dependence and nation building. The study was premised on primary and secondary sources of information and adopted the multi-disciplinary approach. This study revealed that prior to the colonial era the territory built her economy through visual arts such as brass and bronze, wood carvings, ivory carvings, grass and cane weaving, leather and calabash, weaving, painting and tie and textile dyeing. The study found out that the challenges faced by artist in Nigeria are poor infrastructure which includes bad roads, inadequate water supply, erratic electric power supply, difficulty in accessing bank credits and other financial institutions, limitation of entrepreneurial education. The paper also finds out that involvement of artists in entrepreneurship education has led to self-independence, growth and satisfaction, increase of income, boosting of the economy through revenue, enhancement of national development through local
manufacture and reduction of importation. The paper recommended that Nigerians should look back into making and trading of visual arts for man’s dependence and national building.