The role of ceramics in the technological and economic development of many countries has always commanded attention. However, ceramics' role in the socio-political development has often been taken for granted or ignored. In the case of Nigeria, ceramic artists' search for a just and responsible society has not been put into any meaningful perspective, appraised, or critically discussed. This is in spite of the fact that Chris Echeta has created a large body of work that reflects on Nigeria's socio-political and economic history.

Over the last two decades, Nigerian Chris Echeta has produced a large corpus of works, most of them pursuing social themes and satirizing poor leadership and the consequent suffering of the common man. Echeta's thematic concerns can be traced to his experiences of the brutal Civil War (and which brought his early education to a halt from 1967 to 1970). The war remains an important influence that conditioned him to deeply appreciate the creative practice of his teachers (especially Uche Okeke, Chike Aniakor, Obiora Udechukwu and El Anatsui) who showed remarkable sensitivity to the human condition. As a student seeking an artistic outlet, he easily adopted art of social commentary.

Echeta's practice tends to share a common thematic ground with other artists, writers and commentators on national issues in Nigeria. Kingsley Ene-Orji has observed that "Echeta's artistic concern has been almost entirely environmental, in the way his themes have revolved around his country, her economy, polity, and people." This perhaps follows Chike Aniakor's observation that "artists have always been concerned with their place and their works in the movement of history."

Chris Echeta observed that Politician I was created during the tumultuous campaign of 1979. He explained further:

"If you did not put on the large, flowing gown called "Babariga," "Agbada," "Dansiki" or "One-Thousand-Five-Hundred", as we knew it then, you were not a politician. So, I picked that. It is clear that that is what the main man, the politician, is putting on, encouraging the voters to come after him. He towers above every other person. That is the image of the politician. I am not quite sure whether it was the politician that took that image or the society gave them that image."

While The Politician I chronicles the electioneering campaigns and political intrigues of 1979, which led to the emergence of the Second Republic in Nigeria, Strangle Hold I and Strangle Hold II addressed the political struggles between the incumbent and opposition parties for the control of the state so that they could continue to corruptly enrich themselves and show off their "evidence of good living."

Ene-Orji described the partially glazed stoneware Evidence of Good Living as "a social commentary noting the squandermania of the ruling class, the politicians." Corruption and the looting of the public coffers, represented by the pot-bellied figure in the work, were the key reasons advanced by the Nigerian military junta for intervening on the night of 31 December 1983, when the military lead by Gen. Muhammed Buhari overthrew the government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari.

Echeta's prophetic Deflated foretold the collapse of the Second Republic at the end of the same year. Deflated uses the technical processes of puncturing and collapsing of a pot to capture the sudden collapse of existing political and social structures at the time in Nigeria.

In the Country of the Blind, a work that heralded the entry of the military junta into governance, weighed the pedigree of the leaders against their claim to restore hope and sanity to the country. Echeta satirizes their doubtful credibility using the popular proverb "in the country of the blind, a one eyed man is king." With their shortsighted or myopic eyes, such leaders turned innocent citizens into casualties of failed policies and programmes.

Echeta further focused his creative lens on casualties of bad economic policies promoted by one-eyed leaders. This theme appears in such works as The Hawker. For example, this work coincides with a period of untold hardship in Nigeria arising from the junta's economic reform programme dubbed "Austerity Measures." The economy was in such disarray that many Nigerians became street beggars and 'hawkers' to feed themselves and their families. At the time, women not only hawked goods and services but themselves as prostitutes. Others hawked hard drugs, taking blood-chilling risks of public execution. In The Hawker one finds popping eyes and screaming mouth of a victim carrying an extra-large but empty bowl — all indicative of desperation and hopelessness.

New Breed Politicians and Let's Put Our Heads Together responded to Echeta's view of art as social history; he has often said "art and society are like siemese twins which when separated neither survives." The two works record the regrouping of Nigerian politicians in the late 1990's when leaders began to 'put their heads together' again. Many branded themselves "New Breed Politicians." Echeta used empty bowls placed on the heads of the self-styled "new breed politicians" to underscore their empty promises and policies. Further, the artist maintains the large eye balls that have characterized many of his political figures — in Igbo, a greedy or covetous fellow is characterised as "big eyed" (onye anya ukwu) — an iconic feature representing their greed and covetous manner.

We Have Come to Share the Cake is Echeta's further commentary on corrupt leadership. 'National Cake' refers to the collective public purse to be devoured by those at the helm. Thus, as the Nigerian military dictatorship of 1996 (the year in which the work was created) was a notoriously corrupt one, We Have Come to Share the Cake represents Echeta's direct jab at corrupt heads of state.

Finally, The Sacking of a Generation represents Echeta's commentary on the cumulative effect of bad leadership and failed economic policies of successive Nigerian leaders. The work is a 2000-piece installation open to multiple interpretations. The Sacking of a Generation, with its use of perspective effect of figure arrangement, succeeds in illustrating the long and twisted queues of a mass of desperate citizens patiently waiting to pass through the screening gate — a kind of stone-and-lintel gate-way that reminds one of metal-detectors and scanners installed in many embassies, airports, and border-posts. Here, hapless citizens file through a gateway into uncertain territory, represented by a covered clay bowl. The Sacking may remind one of El Anatsui's Visa Queue (1992) which ruminates over harsh economic conditions forcing a people to abandon their homeland to suffer all kinds of humiliation. For Echeta, they are "a helpless generation whose cries for help, over the years, had fallen on deaf ears."

Chris Echeta demonstrates that the ceramic artist is no less creative or visionary than painter, sculptor or poet. He has taken on the task of satirizing leadership in Nigeria with a sympathetic eye towards the masses with which he identifies. For keeping burning social issues in constant artistic light, Echeta has functioned, for more than two decades, as an artist, historian, and social crusader. The enormous contribution of contemporary ceramics to Nigeria's social development is due, in large part, to his professional practice.