How do you classify and define Northern Nigerian writing?
There is nothing different between me writing as a Northerner and those of my colleagues from other regions of Nigeria. The only noticeable difference today is the features of their local peculiarities like names and what defines them as peoples from southern Nigeria in terms of cultural settings. For example, if I use Fatima here, a writer from southeast Nigeria will use Nnenna or another writer in Southwest will use Shola or Tobi. To me, talking about Northern Nigerian writers means writers residing in Northern Nigeria. Take one Mr Tunji for example from Osun, he was born in Minna, all he has written are from Minna or Niger State, where do you place him. There is nothing Northern about the contemporary Northern writer or literature because the problems of Nigeria are the same from the North to the South, the East to the West. What you call poverty here is what is called poverty in the South. Problems of sexuality here are the same in the South. These are the things writers write about whether north or south.
What do you have to say about the Northern literacy, which some say has given birth to the boko haram crisis?
It is not the cause of Boko Haram at all. Politics is responsible for Boko Haram. The issue of whether literacy or illiteracy is responsible for Boko Haram is not true because Islam states that we should love one another. For me, it is politics, struggle for control of resources or even poverty. Imagine in Iraq, they are educated yet there are so many problems. I don’t know why people find it difficult to believe that poverty and injustice have a lot to do with crises in the society.
What can be done to curb this?
Justice is the main thing in any society, if you remove that from peoples’ lives, people will become violent. Equity distribution of resources is also important. Functional education should also be encouraged. If there is functional education and justice, there will be little problem.
How did the book agency sought to promote the indigenous languages in the state?
We have started with Nupe and Gbari languages. We need textbooks in order to teach the languages. We are capitalising on the efforts of I.B Ibrahim (Nupe writer) and Sheikh Umar Dada Paiko in accelerating the development of indigenous languages so that if we say study Nupe or teach Nupe, we will have our textbooks for them to study. I. B. Ibrahim has written textbooks in Mathematics, Literature, Grammar, Biology and many others in Nupe language. But most of them are yet to be published. Before my departure, the agency had shortlisted some of them for publication but funds didn’t come. Ambassador Solomon Yisa, who is also a writer in Nupe unveiled Nupe dictionary on July 20, 2013 in Abuja. There are also several people who are making efforts to encourage the learning and teaching of Nupe. I also invited Sheikh Dada to start something on Gbari or Gbagyi. He informed me of his effort to translate part of the Qur’an into Gbari. There was another Gbagyi who has done a few things in his language, which we wanted to support but it is the question of releasing the approved funds.
What are some of the agency’s achievements?
Many! There were the establishment of Bookhawker Scheme; Establishment of an ICT training centre, Cyprain Ekwensi Library, Minna Creative Writing Class, and the construction of a fence round the Hill-Top Arts Centre, Minna and its general renovation. There was also the establishment of two series such as the Minna Literary Series and the Nigerian Writers Series, and the organisation of annual MBA International Literary Colloquium that held four times, among other things.
How far has the agency been able to bridge the gap in the reading culture in the state?
If there is constant release of funds for creative works as put in the budget, Bookhawker Scheme and the Minna Literary Series should gain immediate frequency for the right impact on reading in the state. Without books proliferating the neighbourhoods, the agency will lose the rhythm we have created there.
Tell us more about the Minna Literary Series?
We thought we needed to replicate the Nigerian Writers Series in Niger State for writers here. So, we invented that for which the governor approved N10m last year, it was not released. Again, this year (2015), there is another N10m for the Minna Literary Series. I hope they will release it to the Agency because about 29 manuscripts of young, new writers are waiting there. I am a restless character when it comes to capacity building of young writers. I foresaw this non-release of funds and decided that each time there was colloquium we would safe for the series. We did and published six of them including a girl from Osun, another girl from Kogi and one young man from Benue. The other three are from Niger State but all of them reside in Minna. The Osun girl was born here, eighteen years ago. The name Minna Literary Series is just a name, any Nigerian who is a writer resident in Niger state can be published. Even corps members serving at the agency have been shortlisted. We just want to stimulate Niger environment through books for development. And boys and girls have started talking to the society, vigorously.
The scheme just started last year with Saddiq and Paul’s book. Two months ago we added Fodio’s book and shortly before my exit another three were added.
What is new in the Minna Literary Series?
The writers are new! The writers are good. They already command national profiles of their own, some even international profile because their works have been published in many, many international Journals. The authors under the scheme started out from secondary schools. They first got published while in secondary schools through the Hill-Top Arts Centre I established while still a teacher in Hill-Top Model School. This is new. Many things are new about the scheme. Remember Abubakar Imam from Kagara? The man had a wife from Bobi or was it his mother? A writer has emerged from Bobi village near Kagara; a girl of 26yrs, Maryam with a novel called Bongel. The unravelling of tomorrow’s Imams, Gimbas and Zainab Alkalis is what is new about the series. And that reality is here. Those of us who are older should take note and stop antagonising tomorrow.
How is the book hawker project coming?
Bookhawker is low now. We have the bookshop, the tricycles but few books. The fund to operate it is not there, no enough manpower at the bookshop. Funds approved for the agency were not released. So, for the last part of my stay there, we just concentrated on publishing new writers from colloquium funds. Bringing forth new writers is a fundamental objective in the law establishing the agency.
How can the projects be better sustained and operated?
We have the operational manual up to Local Government level which we submitted even before we embarked on the construction of the bookhawker. Funding is the main thing.
How has been your experience as DG in the past few years?
Being DG from December 2012 to May 2015 was exciting and full of activities, exciting because we got a ‘home’ as writers, we got an institution where we could experiment many ideas we had nursed as individuals and as a group over the years. Indeed, we did many things for which some commissioners, Permanent Secretaries, even an SSG didn’t understand: they didn’t understand why government should spend money on creative writing, intellectual activities and the development of young writers in the state. But the excitement of seeing how our young ones and their parents felt when the books their chaps have written came out is unprecedented. Remember, the agency is the first and the only of its kind in Nigeria, that is hyper-exciting, isn’t it? We were also excited when the state house of assembly passed the law establishing it and the governor assented, immediately. At the agency, I had time to experiment ideas which were basically on capacity building of the young ones. I concentrated on them, enthusiastically as usual. I will do the same at any point of my private and public engagements in the future, inshaAllah.
Could you share your journey towards becoming the DG of the book agency?
It is the story is of a journey from being the Senior Special Assistant to the state governor in 2009 when I was invited to serve in a new unit created by the then Secretary to State Government, Prof Yahaya Kuta. Afterwards, I was elevated to the Executive Coordinator of the same unit that is Projects and Programmes Documentation Unit (PPDU) in the office of the SSG. Later, I was elevated to the Head, Research and Documentation in the governor’s office. That’s how I have moved from 2009 to December, 2012 when the agency was created to specifically care for writers and the documentation of government activities in professional ways. At each point of the journey, I didn’t lose sight of the fact that my being there was an opportunity to promote writers and writing. My activities were purely cognitive. Of course, I wasn’t going to go around shouting at rallies, I think they recognised my background as an artist and left me alone to concentrate on the intellectual crusade of book development and documentation. It was after the 2012 MBA Colloquium when Soyinka commissioned the Cyprain Ekwensi Library that I sent a text message to Prof Kuta that we needed a place for writers and to domicile the intellectual capital project of the state government which he brought up and we amplified through numerous book activities. He requested for a design which I drafted and sent to him. Today, we have an agency for writers in Nigeria.
What has been the agency greatest challenge the agency has had to face?
Release of funds, in 2014 budget, monies for the arts gallery, multi-media centre and 29 books were not released. 2015, they are yet to release N10million for creative books. Last year, our budget was N50million, this year, it is only N10million. And the young ones said: ‘they have started’.
What was the greatest challenge of the job?
Some petty writers in Minna suddenly constituted themselves to antagonising our programmes. I didn’t know why. Strangely, they found one or two alliances in the writer’s fold in Minna. It was disappointing to me. Even some older members who ought to know you better gave-in to the mischief of people who arrived at the association five years ago. In fact, they went as far as recruiting one Tajudeen Lasisi Amusa, a student of Federal University of Technology, Minna to do their dirty job. They wrote fictions about me and gave to the boy to publish on social media, all in a bid to draw us back at the agency. When I got tired, I filed a case against the boy and got a ruling in my favour. That was a distraction I didn’t like. It appears they are not done yet because I would be contesting for the office of the National President of ANA but I will not be tired of going to court too. They have gone to hire another petty unserious writer in Lagos, one Mudiaga who my young ones here are better than to conduct mischievous interviews with one Farida Mohammed to make fictional and infantile allegations against me. My antagonists from Minna found a South-south fellow of theirs to launch a new war on me, they will fail. So, because of my bid for the National Presidency of our association, they have intensified their campaigns of calumny. Even a Permanent Secretary in the state is housing one of them. Incidentally, the Permanent Secretary is one of those who don’t like the idea of a book agency for writers. They are just wasting their time because my friends across the country know my antecedents; they know my ways with the young ones. By the grace of God we shall win the presidency and continue to demonstrate the national reach we have established for over 25 years now.
What advice do you have for the new administration on how to improve the operations and reading culture and circulation of books?
They should go and understudy, physically, what we have done there and why. Serious minded people should do this; academics and artist should be sent there not civil servants or politicians and take reports back to the governor. They should assess the activities done there; weigh the nobility behind establishing the place, what are the impacts, etc., before deciding what to do. They should return the young graduate-writers there to avoid collapse. Funds should be increased and released regularly.
There are fears in some literary quarters over the fate of the agency in the new dispensation, what say you?
Well, I don’t believe that the new government in Niger State will just throw away a landmark that Global Writers like Wole Soyinka, Atukei Okhai, Odia Ofeimun, Prof Rasheed, Shamsuddeen, Ayindoho of Ghana, Pius Adesanmi, Unoma have commended as an example for Africa. These world scholars came here, you know. It gave us a global image and prestige. More than any MDA, the book agency documents the activity of Niger State government. They are stuck in the Cyprian Ekwensi Library there. We designed IMPACT Magazine for MDAs which popularised activities there. Even Ministry of Information, the parent ministry didn’t do as much as we did. The reason is that, over 98% of the staff were political appointees; were writers, journalist and artists. So the interest to document was there. Now, something needs to be made clear, the agency is not like another MDA elsewhere, this one is a specialised one to institutionalise the literary heritage of Niger state. Until you have something to do with Literary Art and other artistic forms of expression, you have no business being there. Dismantling the agency will translate to dismantling Nigerian Writers. I doubt if they will take it lightly from across the world. But the saddest thing is that only about seven staff is left at the agency now. All the efforts made to absorb the young graduate-writers there were fruitless. All those published and more worked there as political appointees, about thirty of them. They are all out now. I think it is important to get them back there. That’s just an advice. For me, I am back to the IBB University, Lapai, where I came from.
