Tag: Creative Economy

In a situation where literature is often considered in many governmental circles as a poor cousin to other creative arts within the creative economy, Denja Abdullahi debunks that and points out the real status of literature as the fountain to the creative economy while working hand in hand with culture.

The  global economic downturn of the 1980s necessitated the search for alternative drivers of the economy of most nations. Hitherto, the culture sector from which the buzz of the creative economy has evolved was portrayed as secondary to any economy as it is dependent mostly on public subsidy and never considered as a domain of mainstream economic activity. Most nations in Africa and in other developing economies in the world are largely dependent on commodities and mineral resources to generate wealth and earn income for the sustenance of governance. However, in the last two decades, a broader appreciation of the sector emerged as emphasis shifted to a renewed interest in concepts like the cultural industries and creative industries as part of the emerging field of the creative economy. This was a time when traditional cultural activities of the creative hue were reconsidered beyond their normal aesthetics dimensions to their potentials to fulfill economic expectations.

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 The need to graft cultural practices into the lane of tangibility of economic gains gave rise to the evolvement of buzzwords such as creative economy, cultural industries and creative industries which are used differently and interchangeably in different situations. Cultural industries refer to forms of cultural production and consumption that have at their core a symbolic and expressive element and now embraces a wide range of fields, such as music, art, writing, fashion and design, and media industries, e.g. radio, publishing, film and television  production. The term creative industries is applied to a much wider productive set, including goods and services produced by the cultural industries and those that depend on innovation, including many types of research and software development.

The creative economy can thus be characterised as the sum of all the parts of the creative industry and has been identified as an economy that promotes social inclusion, cultural diversity and human development. The discourse around the cultural and creative industries (CCI) and the creative economy has evolved over the years to accommodate a new term called the orange economy, which is often used now interchangeably with the creative economy. Whatever is the referential signifier of the economy under discourse, they all have common denominators and attributes which are: creativity is involved, talent is of importance, it is knowledge-based, it evolves from the culture of the society and is shaped by it, it can be enhanced with technology like every other thing and it is becoming world-wide the inexhaustible pool for job and wealth creation.                      

The talk about the creative economy foregrounds the necessity of moving away from the intangibility of service or existence to commodification of cultural products or services that can be traded for income generation and wealth creation. Literature as we know it starts from the realm of the intangible; from the creative pedestal involving mostly the individual with no primary inkling of commerce but expression being the guiding principle. It is when this creative expression manifests in written words on paper or the screen of digital devices and is frozen into a form for transmission to others that we have the book or text which is a major product of the publishing industry. Thus, if we are to find the place of literature in the creative economy, the fortunes will largely be tied to books and the publishing industry. Though Africa is largely an oral culture before the coming of the colonialists from the East and West, the book and the publishing industry in Africa has come a long way and has been there all along as a medium of general societal re-orientation and education. The book and the publishing industry has for long been consigned to the realm of the provision of social services with profit not often intended. In the beginnings of the publishing industry in Africa, we find colonial enterprise at the helms with big time publishing houses with ties to foreign capitals being the big players. As expected, whatever economic profits made from these early days of publishing were repatriated away from the continent to foreign capitals. However, in the sphere of literary arts or literature as we may call it, there was an attendant collateral benefits to these colonial publishing enterprise with the discovery of indigenous African literary minds whose writings went ahead to shape African thoughts for many years ahead. The commercial and intellectual success story of the African Writers Series (AWS), published by Heinemann is a supreme example of what the book industry was in that early period of African political independence from Western colonialism. The AWS’s  example ensured two things and those were the establishment of a continental wide economically thriving book industry and the cross pollination of ideas across Africa.

 However, a recent search for current data on the general contribution of the creative industries subsectors to the GDP of Nigeria revealed a set of “creative industry factsheet”  derived from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics which revealed that between 2011 and 2020, the publishing industry showed a gradual progress in its contribution to the nation’s GDP from the year 2011 and attained its all-time high in the year 2014 with a contribution of 10.28%. The subsector remains the only sector that posted a massive contribution of 6.79% to the nation’s GDP during the covid outbreak. (National Bureau of Statistics, 2011-202) .According to the said “creative industry factsheet,” the publishing industry contributed the highest to the GDP within the  cultural and creative industries (CCI) sectors in the years under review and while other subsectors nosedived during the 2020 pandemic year, it maintained a kind of resilience as its contribution rose further. This set of current data which contrasted sharply and positively for the publishing industry against the earlier data referred to and the negative widespread perception of the industry’s contribution to the national economy within and without, has therefore made it imperative for the importance of the industry to the economy to be properly reappraised.

As a member of Council of the Nigerian Book Fair Trust (NIBF) , an organization comprising of all the major stakeholders in the Nigerian book iindustry years , between 2015-2019, i can surmise that the book industry has been one that has not received the required attention from the government, in spite of its contributions to the knowledge and creative economies. NIBF has been organising the Nigerian International Book Fair, touted as “the biggest book fair in Africa” annually in Lagos for over 20 years running, and in spite of the successes recorded by this fair in creating local and international markets and network of engagements for the players of the book industry, it is still hankering after non-existent, lukewarm and rather indifferent government participation. Every year, the Trust tries its best to draw the attention of the relevant government authorities and agencies to its activities without success. This situation led the board of the Trust to think of commissioning a study of the contributions of its annual book fair to the creative economy of the hosting State and the income it generates yearly for the participating authors, publishers, book sellers and advertisers, who attend from different parts of the world. In essence, it came to a point in which there was the need to prove the relevance of the book business in factual economic terms to the creative economy in order to be taken seriously by government and policy makers. Governmental and political neglect of the book and publishing industry within the creative industries as understood by policy makers surfaced during the covid 19 pandemic period when the government initiated discussions with the stakeholders in the industry with a view to give them palliatives but left out associations and guilds within the industry. It took a collective reminder letter from the associations within the book and publishing sector before they were accommodated in the discussions, which at the end never manifested in any measure . The overlooking of the sector by government at all levels when the talk is about engaging or giving assistance to the subsectors within the creative economy is a recurrent feature in the Nigerian public space.

 Taking a close look at the publishing industry and the book market in Nigeria, it would be discovered that beyond the commodification of its products, it has consistently been connected to the building of the cultural capital and advancement of education in Nigeria. The publishing industry and the book market cannot be divorced from the huge education industry spanning the primary, secondary and tertiary levels. Servicing of the education industry with required books has given rise to a crop of educational publishers who are mainly devoted to the publication of texts for the schools curricula. This set of publishers with their strategic connections to the educational regulatory authorities, who prescribe texts for schools, have been able to remain profitably in business, employing many and keeping the wheel of their publishing economy running. Other kinds of publishers focusing on general interest books have risen which each capturing its targeted slice of the market in line with identified publishing predilections. Thus we have in Nigeria now, like we may have elsewhere, publishers of children books, religious texts, academic texts, literary texts, aesthetically packaged texts, biographies and political books etc. Each of the major publishing houses has found their niche and has maintained their peculiar competitive advantages.

The book sector remains one of the most resilient sectors of the creative economy of African nations because of its ties to educational development. However, its real contributions to economic growth of nations has been taken for granted and undervalued because of the lack of empirical data and due to the perception of the sector as belonging to the realm of social service rather than that of economic activity. With the imperative for the diversification of most economies of nations in the continent, the sector has grown enough in status for a thorough self-appraisal towards tracking its economic potentials and enhancing its capabilities as a major contributor to general economic well-being of nations within the continent.

Haji Omonoba Bello is a crafty and creative stage artiste. Known for his vocal, vibrant and projective nuances on stage, he has indeed come to dominate the Nigerian theatre scene as one of its most sought-after stage characters and actors. In this interview with Edozie Udeze, Bello Hammers heavily on government obnoxious policies towards the art. But he cautions also that the newly created Ministry of Culture, Art and Creative Economy can work if given the chance to do so.

Life theatre is known as the mother of all acting. In Nigeria, stage theatre has been known to be the mainstay of drama in which music, dance, dance-drama, and other performances have consistently kept the sector alive and active. One of those artistes that has kept the hope of stage theatre alive is Haji Omonoba Bello. Bello’s name in the annals of stage performances in Nigeria is but legendary. For decades he has been visible and mobile in the sector. He has been fully involved in so many stage shows and performances that his name is synonymous with theatre generally.

Most shows and scripts that need serious and professional interpretations on stage have people like Bello as one of the leading characters. In the past years some of the musical dramas on stage where professional dexterity were needed, Bello always held sway. In Kakadu, the musical, for instance, his role both at home and when it was taken overseas for staging his presence was never equaled. In this interview with The Nation, Bello speaks eloquently about those necessary things and materials to be in place for artistes to thrive.

He is passionate about making theatre come alive once more. He says “Well, you know I am from the great Benin kingdom where traditions and art speak volumes. I am a professional actor, theatre practitioner, director, writer, you know stuffs like that. The theatre is really not thriving now. And it has been like that for quite sometime now. It has been like where we have maybe occasional productions of large casts. Then suddenly you perform say a week and that is all. This is merely due to lack of proper and adequate patronage. Lack of sponsors. Lack of adequate venues for shows. Lack of finance on a general note. That is what we have been battling with and government itself is not helping the situation. They don’t really pay attention to the culture sector. And that is where they are making the biggest mistake. This is so because culture is your life, it is our life. You cannot run away from your culture. In other words, you cannot develop outside of yourself. It is not possible.

I remember when Chairman Mao took over in China and the first thing he did was to say my people for us to get back on track and compete with the outside world, we need to be ourselves; we need to come back into ourselves to rediscover who we are. Therefore here in Nigeria we must go back to our culture. The Chinese did. And where is China today? They have gone far, far ahead of the rest of the world. There are many ways China is super to America today. That is the truth. Economically and otherwise China is renowned. China is great. This is so because they went back to their culture to reinvent themselves in all spheres.

Here in Nigeria, it is quite unfortunate. All the politicians focus on nothing in particular. I don’t even know what they are focusing on. Honestly, I do not know. Here in Nigeria we have the capacity to do everything by ourselves. We do not even need the outside world to come to our aid. We have everything to succeed. What we do not have is government. Government is so lousy, visionless and unprogressive. If we have to get it right, the government has to have a rethink about the issues of culture. The new ministry for the creative economy is just new. We are waiting to see what they will do to help the sector, in fact to put it on a new footing.

When a house is established on a faulty foundation, the house doesn’t stand. Right now we know what we passed through during the 2023 elections. That is the foundation we have now. However, the culture sector has to move forward. The minister can move the sector forward if she is given the chance to work. If you hear the word creative economy, it rings in the ear. It has meaning. It is meant to work if given the chance to work. That is what we are saying-give the art and creative economy the chance to work, the chance to grow the sector and encourage artistes generally.

America strives on creative economy. They are a world power in that regard. But Nigeria can supersede America in that regard. We have more creative people in the world. Even America says so that we have more creative people in the world. They have done the statistics. What we are waiting for is that government will leverage on that, then give us the conducive atmosphere to thrive, to move on. See Kakadu, the musical. We went to South Africa to perform it in 2017 or so. If you go to Mandela Theatre, you see posters of Kakadu and others from across the world on the walls. Millions of posters of different performances from all over the world. But when got there, South Africans, for one month we staged it, said that what we brought was the best. They said they were shocked that that production came from Nigeria. They were happy, they were excited. The Kakadu show proved that stage shows can impact can energize the people. It can also relive history; teach the people the whole beauty of stage performance.

We have seen all that. Nigerian’s are the greatest in terms of creativity and all that. But in governance our leaders are not getting it right. I am very displeased with our leaders. It is painful. Kakadu is not only a musical show it is a total musical show. We can even create more shows out of our situations. Even better shows than Kakadu can come up. We have the creative people to do it. What lacks here are grants. What we need are grants and not loans. We do not need loans at all. What happens abroad is that government gives grants for people to brainstorm, create, and then the artistes will produce.

Classical works usually come out of this situation. Loans do not produce results. But grants do. Grants help the creative person to be at his best at all times. He can go into seclusion, into himself for a certain period of time during which he is enabled to produce the best works ever. This is what the Ministry of Creative Economy should focus on. This will encourage artistes to work and grow. If government is serious about establishing theatres or stages for performances… what we have are privately owned. People like Ben Bruce and other persons have established stages for performances. People like Bolanle Austen-Peters of Terra Kulture. But beyond that, government should establish centres for stage performances. People like Ifeoma Fafunwa and others are doing well for the sector. And if you check, many of them are women and they are all lawyers. Where are the artistes, people like us who went to the universities to study arts? We do not have the financial backing to do anything. It is not good enough. We need to do more ourselves.

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But also there can be a synergy between artistes and authors on books, on adaptation of literary works. Yes also it is for us to look at what we are worth. If I am a performance artiste and you are a writer, you should be able to negotiate with each other. In it we should have a standard. If you have to give me your book for adaptation, you should be able to tell me how much I will get out of it so that I will also breathe and live. But we do, not have standards here. Until we have it things will be done haphazardly. That is not good enough for us. Even in Ghana, you cannot just go there and say you want to shoot a film. No they won’t allow you. Ghanaians will not allow you because they have standards.

You see Ghana has gone far. They are better organized than us. They have set some rules and regulations and you have to pass through them if you want to produce films. See, you cannot be the same way all the time. There has to be a synergy between writers and producers and actors. We need also more cinema centres, places where people can easily go and watch films at their convenient moments. At the moment also there is a play on MKO Abiola which will go on stage for the Easter season. I have not read the script yet because we are yet to start rehearsals. But I think it is a good idea that Abiola is going to be on stage.”