He started painting at the early age of 12, inspired by the cheap re-produced illustrations of Western arts which were prominent in many Nigerian magazines and religious books.
He completed his studies with a diploma in fine arts and a teacher's certificate from St. John Woods College, London in 1922.
During the time, there were implicit suggestions by the colonial officers that the natural limits of Africans was in pottery and craft.
Aina's return from St John Woods, London, in 1922 and Julians Academy in Paris and his acquired knowledge of the European technique of painting, anatomy and the characteristics of European art education coincided with a new perspective on introducing indigenous art education in the country.
His themes dealt primarily with the science of perspective, drawing, human proportions, and watercolor painting.
His portrait of Mrs Spencer Savage in 1906 is sometimes credited as one of the earliest outstanding work of art that used a western and modern style and technique.
The latter was his mentor who got his attention on the deleterious characteristics of colonialism which was accentuated with a segregationist governor in the person of Walter Egerton.