When Enesi Ohieku was born on June 6th 1924, in Okene in central Nigeria, to Ibrahim Ohieku and Adisetu Onono (Ebira of the Ozi-ede clan), the Southern

and Northern protectorates were amalgamated only ten years. He was born into an age in which the men that would shape and spawn the future of the new

nation were those able to look further ahead than others, those able to grasp the nettle of opportunity. Mr. Jackie Phillips was such a man.

 

The last of 10 children and an only son, Enesi (the greatly sought after and much loved child) left the familiarity of home at the age of 8, travelling the country with a much older sister (who had no children) and her husband, a travelling staff with UAC . Daddy spent time in various UAC trading entrepots including Lokoja and Warri, before berthing in Lagos in1942 at the age of 18. He initially moved in with an older sister already settled in Lagos and soon immersed himself in a city that from that point onwards was the only home he knew till his passing on Sunday April 2nd 2017. He lived a life of daring, flare and determination.

 

Daddy was extremely strong and resourceful and took to boxing at a gym shortly after getting to Lagos. He became an accomplished boxer – a knockout specialist – and was a bantamweight champion of Nigeria. It was during that time that he took the ring name – Jackie Phillips (the Jackie telling of the upper cuts he used “to jack up” his opponents). The name stuck! He was also an avid swimmer and as a young man was a member of the Ejanla Swimming club in Lagos. Swimming remained a lifelong passion of his up until he was about 80. Every day, getting up early, he would go down for a swim.

 

He was apprenticed to a Lagos photographer, Milton Macaulay. It was during this time that he started to conceive of the possibility of photography as a profession. He secured a scholarship from what was a predecessor of the British Council to study photography in the United Kingdom.

He left in 1948, studying Photography at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London from 1948 to 1951. His programme of studies included aerial photography and later on, after completing his studies, in 1952 he attended a course on large format photography in Munich. That would prove a prescient decision for a nation moving towards independence and still mindful of the need to record the progress of major infrastructural developments. Over a period of five years in the early 60s, Jackie Phillips Photos created a visual record of the construction of the Kainji Dam In 1951, after his graduation, he was assigned to cover the Festival of Britain by the Home Office. Later, he worked in Fleet Street with the Daily Mirror, honing skills that would serve him well on his return to Nigeria. The late Alhaji Babatunde Jose was also apprenticing with the paper at the same time.

 

Upon his return to Nigeria he was offered the job of Chief Photographer for the Daily Times which at that time was part of the Daily Mirror stable. The salary on offer was £360:00 per annum. It was not an inconsiderable sum in the early 1950s but daddy politely declined and counter offered that he would instead supply photographs to the Daily Times freelance. The management of the Daily Times could not believe what they imagined was his temerity. It was in fact not temerity; it was a manifestation of the confidence he had in himself, to leverage what he had learnt. Daily Times at that time chose not to retain a Chief Photographer and relied on Daddy’s freelance arrangement.

 

He started with the most basic work, covering football matches and weddings, developing the pictures in his VW Beetle (with black cloth affixed to the windows) and returning to the stadium and church as the case might be to sell the photographs before the end of the match or wedding. That self same Beetle car was at the centre of an incident that stayed with him. He arrived at the Cathedral Church Marina in his Beetle to cover a wedding. As he and an assistant alighted and started to take their equipment, one of two women – obviously guests given how they were dressed – hissed and said, “Kini aiye yin di, photographer na o nwa moto” (“what is this world coming to, even a,photographer is driving a car”). He threw himself into his work and was soon much in demand amongst discerning social and political circles. The resident expatriate community in particular often retained him for official and social events. To this day, in homes across the length and breadth of the country, there are aging photo albums that bear testimony to the degree to which Jackie Phillips bestrode Nigerian photography for half a century; peerless through to the end of the twentieth century.

 

The catalogue of those that sat in front of his lens reads like a Who is Who of Nigeria during its birth pangs and at birth. He photographed Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Sardauna of Sokoto Sir Ahmadu Bello, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Emperor Haile Selassie, Muhammadu Ribadu, Chief Okotie Eboh, M.T. Mbu, Alhaji Ishiaku Rabiyu, Alhaji Shehu Musa, Justice Adefarasin, Justice Onyeama, Justice G.B.A. Coker, Justice Lambo, Justice Eso, Justice Adebiyi, Justice Odesanya, Justice Anyaegbunam, Odumosu – Jesu Oyingbo, Chief Yemi Lawson, Chief Chris Ogunbanjo, Chief Michael Ibru, Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya, Chief Ola Vincent, the Ohinoyi of Ebira land, Alhaji Mohammed Sanni Omolori, the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Adeyemi, Nigeria’s first High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Alhaji Abdulmalik, Ambassador Abdullahi Atta, General Yakubu Gowon (he took his official wedding photos) and General Ibrahim Babangida, to name but a few. He was recalled to Nigeria by the UK government to cover Queen Elizabeth II’s visit in 1956. Earlier on, in England, he had taken the photograph of the Queen’s father, King George VI. He never stopped reinforcing his knowledge and know-how, attending courses on new developments, especially in portraiture photography in California. The things he saw being done convinced him that he had to establish his colour photography studio in Lagos, once again raising the bar for Nigerian photography.

 

A fellow Nigerian photographer, Don Barber, in an interview a few years ago, said thus of Jackie Phillips:

 

“By my rating he is one of the best in the world, in the class of Ian Coats and George Gerber, photographers with the seal of British royalty.”

 

Barber went on to say that if daddy had worked in Europe or America, he would have been a Royal Photographer, remembering that even here in Nigeria, he once photographed Queen Elizabeth II, and earlier on in the United Kingdom, photographed her father, King George VI. Barber went on to say in his interview that Jackie Phillips was the only photographer at that level he would want to work with as a Photographer’s Assistant. He added:

 

“My disappointment is that I did not succeed to work under him and collect a handout note and essential tips from a master, instead he gave me a lot of advice and that was it. He said if I had spent even one day in his studio, it would have been a dream come true.”

 

Daddy loved his Alsatians, his Mercedes Benz sports cars, his water sports and horse racing. He had a string of Alsatians, a few of which were called Bob. He loved playing with them and hurt a lot when any passed or had to be put down. The Mercedes KL 4242 was his weekend treat in the 60s. In the 70s, after collecting LAB 1991 from the Mercedes Benz factory, he took it for a spin on the Autobahn and then on to London, before eventually shipping it out to Lagos. Then there was the black one he used in London. Each was lovingly cleaned and cared for every weekend. He enjoyed water sports and was a good swimmer and water skier. He was the second Nigerian member of the Lagos Motor Boat Club; the first was an Honorary Member, the Prime Minister, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa. After becoming a member, Balewa suggested to daddy that he become one as he would better appreciate that kind of thing. The PM joked that daddy was in the same profession as the man who had married Princess Margaret (Armstrong Jones, a photographer and the future Lord Snowden) so he would fit right in with the Boat Club. Daddy turned out to be the thin edge of the wedge, wasting no time in opening the Boat Club’s doors to his Nigerian friends. He owned a beach house at Ibeshe that he went to every weekend and he would often be seen skiing up and down the lagoon side of Ibeshe, as well as up and down Three Cowries Creek, in front of the Boat Club. He also enjoyed horse racing which, in season, was a regular feature of the Lagos social calendar on weekends. He owned a share in a particularly successful racing horse in the 60s called Malaria, and on several occasions won a pretty penny on Malaria.

 

He partook in many Eyo festivals; specifically, he was a member of the Adimu Orisha play group for several decades. He on occasion shared a story of the then leader of his group, the late Justice G.B.A. Coker, looking up Nnamdi Azikiwe Street from Tinubu Square and saying to his Eyo foot soldiers, “Mi o le riIdumota” (“I cannot see Idumota”). This was a thinly veiled directive to clear a path of everyone from Tinubu Square to Idumota, as the crow flies.

 

He was also a member of the Yoruba Tennis Club and the Island Club. Though he visited the Island Club frequently in the early 60s, he was a strict teetotaler, he neither drank nor smoked. He used the clubs to network and in the case of the Island Club, additionally to indulge his passion for snooker.

 

He had exquisite taste and was particular about his dressing: those made-to-measure business suits and pinstriped three-piece suits worn with a pocket square and a pocket watch. He appreciated the fine things of life and had an excellent eye (oju inu) for architectural lines. Everything he did, he did with panache. In everything he strove to be the best. In his photography and in his studios, his pioneering production of Nigerian postcards, his establishment of the marketing and sale of greeting cards as a viable business, his restaurant, his construction company, the provision of quality finishing to the print trade, in all of these there was always a touch of class.

 

His love and care for his children knew no bounds and drove him; he was determined to cement the breakthrough he had made and, mantra-like, never stopped saying that the only true legacy he could leave any child was a good education. From crèche to university, he passionately sought out the best he could for his children; no child was denied opportunity “even if I have to sell the shirt on my back”.

 

In an era in which the idea of Nigeria sometimes seems under siege, his early life was suffused with hope for the country and girded by the belief that the future of Nigeria would be bountiful. Later on, he struggled to reconcile those aspirations of his youth with the nation’s despair in the evening of his life.

 

The Jackie Phillips story is one of heights attained, despite the odds, a lesson in perseverance, fortitude and daring. We are all crumbling clay so we are all flawed. It is in our ability to rein in our flaws and rise to the fullness of our potentials that we paint our life’s story. The Jackie Phillips story is still being painted in the odyssey of his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and beyond. Daddy is the fountainhead that enables us and he magnified and multiplied our horizons, incomparably.

 

Thank you Daddy!