The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Mallam Denja Abdullahi

  • ‘Why I want to be ANA president’

    Camillus Ukah is an author, a publisher and the vice-president of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). He is one of the candidates vying for the post of president come November when election will be held in Enugu. In this interview with Edozie Udeze he states why he is the best candidate for the job and more.

    Your tenure as the vice president of the Association of Nigerian Authors will be  over in the next few weeks. Looking back, what and what can you point to as the greatest legacies you are leaving behind?

    As ANA Vice President, my work is essentially that of support and assistance to the ANA President in his enormous tasks of steering the ship of the Association. I must quickly say that I have had a very close and healthy working relationship with him perhaps because I was able to quickly key into his purpose driven and goal oriented psyche. Whatever legacy I may lay claim to would therefore naturally derive from the achievements of the man I was elected to assist. Glaringly, the current ANA President, Mallam Denja Abdullahi, the man I have variously described as ANA Kinetic President and a rain bearing storm, has set a new pace for ANA with his monumental achievements as ANA President.

    Four years of being the VP and you want to be the president. What is the motivation?

    Within the time frame of about four years, I have been serving as ANA Vice President I have seen a remarkable advancement in the cause of ANA. As a passionate stakeholder my mood is that of excitement because ANA’s gains are my own gains given that I am a committed Nigerian writer. I have identified six key areas of these strides i) Strengthening the bond of shared aesthetic experiences by working for the solidarity of writers across the country as to ensure a profitable synergy between the national secretariat and the branches.  ii) Strengthening and expanding as well as improving the mentorship scheme of the association across Nigeria, which has encouraged more participation and greater results.iii) Implementation of an ANA-driven national programme that will encourage reading amongst Nigeria’s children and position them for excellence through A book-A chid-A week project. iv) Creation of recurrent platforms for interaction between writers and critics in order to further stimulate the criticism of Nigerian literature through the ANA/AEFUNAI annual conference. v) Breaking decades of deadlock on the ANA Land Project by successfully putting up solid structures on ground in the Mamman Vatsar’s Writers Village, Abuja and relocating ANA’s Secretariat in ANA’s building on the land. vi) Developing the first ever ANA five-year strategic plan and successful production of The Dancing Mask (ANA documentary). These and more achievements have, no doubt, taken ANA to the next and kinetic level of advancement. I wish to see these achievements consolidated and advanced to ensure an Association that steadily develops by progressive addition to what is already on ground. Considering the fact that I have been part of these achievements, I am emboldened to seek the office of the next ANA President since I have a good knowledge of how we have come this far and therefore would easily fit into the consolidation programme.

    There are four of you  in the race for the presidency. All of you have served the associationin different capacities, what makes you a better choice at this point in time?

    ANA is a very unique association with highly perceptive members, who have always assessed candidates based on their service to the association. The four of us, who are running for the post of ANA President, have in various ways been involved in leadership of the association. It is the congress of eligible voters that will decide on who among us they want to engage his service and I can assure you that that decision has more often than not depended largely on verifiable records of selfless service to the association.

    From science you moved to writing, publishing and politics. When will you give us a novel of science fiction?

    Beyond the narrow definition of science fiction, my creative energy is presently bent on a futuristic novel that does not only highlight the problems but proffer innovative solutions to the many problems that seeks to consume the soul of our collective consciousness.

    You once ran Imo State ANA as its chairman and it does not seem to be as vibrant any more. What are the key issues there now?

    A good foundation stands the taste of time. I thank God for the energy he gave my team to strengthen the foundation of ANA Imo. The branch is still waxing strong and has a very bright future. Although times have changed and those who are no longer current with the branch may not fully appreciate the facts.

    A lot of people still feel ANA continues to live from hand to mouth, no solid account base. What difference will your tenure make to ameliorate the situation?

    The more relevant an association is in terms of perception of its utilitarian value by the society, the more positively disposed that society becomes to the offerings of the association. The enormous reading deficit experienced in our society has neither helped ANA nor her members. Money and prestige can come from literature books only when consumers are desirous to buy and read the books. It is my hopeful projection that the various innovative programmes put in place by the current ANA administration will help to improve our society’s attitude to reading and when these programmes are consolidated and advanced as I have articulated in my manifesto they will no doubt improve the fortunes of Nigerian writers and by extension ANA. On another note, baring the fixation on inheritance, which leads to unproductive entitlement mentality, the ANA land when properly developed will help to bring direct funding to the association. Thanks to the current ANA administration for taking the bull by the horn and by consolidation and advancement of the present efforts at developing the land, funds will soon begin to flow into the association. Efforts will equally be made to use the services of grant writers for foreign aids but the bottom line is in the prosperity of Nigerian writers at home, for it is only then that such writers can easily fulfil their financial obligations to ANA as a body.

    You once made the list of Nigerian Literature Prize. When are we expecting another literary hit from you?

    Yes, my book, When the Wind Blows, described by many scholars as a remarkable artistic achievement, made the NLNG long list in 2008. Unfortunately another novel of mine, Sweet Things, thought of by some scholars as more artistic than When the Wind Blows, came out late in 2012 and could not be entered for that year’s NLNG prize for novels. Surely something new is steaming in the fire and will soon be cooked.

    What in your reckoning is the state of literature in Nigeria at the moment?

    Nigerian literature has the capacity to unite Nigerians more than any other subject “since all shared experience helps to bring people together in friendship and mutual respect, for any group of people who share the same aesthetic experience have a bond between them and feel united under a common identity”(Nnolim). In Nigeria, now that social remedies have failed us and politics, sadly dominated by ethnicity, has continued to divide us, literature, properly harnessed, highlights itself as one strong binding force at our disposal because the preoccupation of the committed writer-a commitment to human freedom-is always the same across religion, politics and culture. I believe implicitly that. I equally subscribe fully to Achebe’s assertion that the story is our escort and guide. Moreover, since creativity in literature inspires creativity, innovation and invention in science and technology (Ukala) then literature is an important tool for national development via intellectual capital development.

  • ANA unveils plans for 2019

    Writers have been urged to address corruption, terrorism, bigotry in high places, herdsmen atrocities and other national concerns.

    “Nigeria writers should continue to engage their writings as tools of tackling rising dislocations and banes of our national development including corruption, terrorism, bigotry in high places, herdsmen atrocities, ethnic militia formations, degradation of social standards, ritual killings, maltreatment of pensioners, the elderly, women and children, instability in tertiary institutions among other issues with a view to drawing the attention of the government to stemming their tide, outright stoppage and regeneration of the confidence of the masses in the state,” according to the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) National President, Mallam Denja Abdullahi.

    He made the call at the  Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) National Executive Council meeting held at Grangehill Hotel, Mpape, Abuja. At the meeting, which was its fourth edition, the ANA NEC unveiled plans for the association for 2019, nationwide. It featured rigorous debates on a variety of issues affecting the association and the nation.

    While restating its commitment towards the association’s inaugural objectives of building on the values of the founding fathers of the association in upholding and maintaining its status as the foremost and authentic umbrella body of all creative writers and literary persons in the country, the current leadership, led by Abdullahi, assured that it will “continue to pursue programmes and initiatives that will unify and build the capacity of writers and strengthen the bonds that has sustained the nation as a whole”.

    The online database project and documentation of the membership of the association, literary campaigns and 2019 convention came into review. And the end meeting, a communique was drawn involving some resolutions made by the house, which was signed by ANA President and the Dr. General Secretary, Ofonime Inyang. It was resolved that: “The online database project and documentation of the membership of the association, towards the development of a data and statistical resource base to enhance the implementation of the vision and objectives of the Strategic Development Plan will be pursued to a viable conclusion and therefore all chapters and members are requested to immediately forward the membership forms and fill the online registration forms on the ANA webpage and submit same to the national secretariat on or before March 30, 2019. Failure to do so will automatically lead to the de-registration of defaulting chapters and exclusion from benefitting from subsequent national projects and initiatives.

    “That the ongoing development of the ANA’s Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village in  Mpape, Abuja was also revisit is intensifying with a view to commissioning some aspects of the project later in the year. The National Executive Council therefore enjoins the developer and all persons connected to the project to keep to the terms of the existing memorandum and promise to deliver on target.”

    Also it was stated that the Yusuf Ali Literary Campaign initiative this year shall be open to chapters with innovative literary programmes and projects involving educational institutions in the host states and with the collaboration of key stakeholders in the field. “Such chapters must also have complied with the membership database documentation project as in 2 above to be considered at all.”

    In the same vein, chapters who have failed to conduct elections or change its leadership for many years, and those that are moribund were advised to handover the leadership to sole administrators to be appointed by the National Executive Council “who will be mandated to conduct elections and get the chapters back to operation within three months for effective functioning of such chapters”.

    The 38th International Convention of the association has been billed to hold on the October 31 to November 3, with the theme: “Literature, Nationalism and the Poetics of National Integration”. “The hosting state will be announced later,” it was stated.

    ANA NEC expressed consternation at the desperation that has settled into our political arena whereby those angling for political power to be secured during the forthcoming general elections have resorted to discrediting the process even before it began and employing all sorts of self-help methods; all geared towards opportunistic ends. “Like we asked before, where will all these leave the people of Nigeria?. Careless and inciting   utterances and disorderly conduct by political players in the country constitute a  threat to the peace and harmony in our nation  at a time like this. The Association calls on concerned agencies and the government to work towards curbing this ugly development by ensuring strict adherence to due process, rule of law and the constitution of this country. Politicians are advised to go about their campaigns and electioneering in ways that will not release further heat on the polity and allow the will of the people as will be expressed at the polls to prevail. We appeal to the politicians and power players in and out of government to allow us have a country after the elections,” it was stated.

  • For culture sector, the stakes are high in 2019

    For brighter hopes in the horizon, artists and stakeholder in the culture sector, speak about 2019 as a year when all hurdles must be surmounted to create renewed opportunities for all and sundry, writes Edozie Udeze

    The year 2018 can’t be said to be an excellent year for the culture sector.  Yet it was a year when most stakeholders made efforts to trudge on, in order to keep one or two projects and programmes afloat.  It can be said to be a year of stocktaking preparatory to the year 2019, which is here with us, and which culture technocrats and practitioners have already begun to insinuate will have a lot of goodies to offer the people in all facets.  Going by the plans and projected programmes already in the front-burner, the culture sector in the year 2019, will bring smiles and positive things to those who live by it – artists, writers, administrators, technocrats, name them.

    “It will be a great year”, enthused Mallam Denja Abdullahi, president of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).  “It promises to be interesting as we in ANA, are going to introduce significant changes in the running of ANA.  The first set of buildings on our Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village in Abuja will be inaugurated.  And of course the year 2019 will witness a change of guard in the leadership of ANA at the national level”, he said.  There is already a laid down rule and official policy beginning from 2019, that for any state of the federation to bid and be given a hosting right for the annual convention, that state must have up to twelve million naira in its kitty.  This is to avoid a situation where ANA members would converge for a convention only to have series of problems concerning lack of funds to do the basic things that would make a convention a hitch free affair.

    This way too, it will behoove upon states leaders of the association to make concerted efforts in and out of season to ensure that funds are raised to keep ANA in proper shape.  This is part of what 2019 has in stock for ANA so that writers will be able to sit tight to focus on the business of dishing out quality works for public consumption and appreciation.

    Toyin Akinoso of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA) during the last LABAF festival in Lagos, asserted that it will be sensible to now decongest Lagos by having more book festivals outside of the city.  “That is why I am not happy that Ake Book and Art Festival has been shifted to Lagos from Abeokuta.  I think our next line of thought will be to make book festivals an affair in some states other than Lagos.  People who are interested in the promotion of books and arts should take up the challenge as from next year (2019).  There is indeed no way we can keep everything here and hope to get the best results”.  Akinoso said in an interview at the last Lagos Arts and Books Festival in Lagos.

    For him, big dreams usually start with little efforts which is what 2019 should hold in stock for those who want to aspire to help the book industry grow in leaps and bounds.  This way, come 2019, more books will be made available to the teeming lovers of books who ordinarily converge in Lagos from time to time to savour such festivals and the opportunities they offer.  It is hoped that 2019 will be a challenging year for book promoters in Enugu, in Kano, in Benin, in Port Harcourt, in Kaduna, in Owerri, in Uyo and Calabar and more places to bring books nearer to the people via more accelerated book festivals with the aim to reengineer the reading culture across ages and class.

    In the visual art sector, more positive promises have been made by those who shape the sector.  Director of French Cultural Centre, Lagos, Charles Courdent promised to work in closer contacts with Nigerian artists to ensure that deeper awareness is created between Nigerian and European arts.  “We thank Mike Adenuga for his help to give us a permanent office in Lagos.  Beyond that, we can see that Nigerian art is alive in Lagos.  We will ensure that from now onwards Nigerian artists are exposed in France.  This will encourage a meeting point between our art in France and Nigerian art here in the country”, Courdent stressed in an interview.

    In addition, he promised to make available some of the old works of one of the world’s best and most renowned painters Picasso.  Picasso, he reasoned, copied most of his works from Africa.  “Oh Picasso was mostly influenced by African arts because he was privileged to come across African arts.  When you look at some of his arts, you can easily see deep traces of African backgrounds in them”, Courdent informed.  “Therefore I will bring Picasso to Nigeria.  I will make some of his works available for us to see in 2019.  This will happen at our new villa – the French Cultural Centre, Lagos.  And it will be an ample time for us all to be together.  In fact, in 2019, we will give culture a renewed attention driven by constant cooperation between the Nigerian and French arts”, the director declared in an encounter at the Alexis Galleries, Lagos.

    Also in the same way, Patty Chidiac-Mastrogiannis of the Alexis Galleries promised to load 2019 with more glorious art programmes.  So far, she has been in the forefront of the promotion of Nigerian art.  In 2019, she will be working more closely with those she now terms ‘the next masters’ of Nigerian art.  “These are a set of artists who have been consistent with their works over the past two or more decades”, she revealed during the occasion of bloom-the next masters, an exhibition which held in her gallery during the last quarter of the year 2018.

    Chidiac-Mastrogannis, who has devoted her time to organizing Artists Residencies in Nigeria, involving artists from across Africa, hopes to do more to elevate the fortunes of artists and their works come 2019.  Her intention also is to beef up her efforts at securing sponsors so as to make it easier for artists to make more money at every outing.  She made it clear that “we have supported artists to organize and showcase their works and talents through numerous exhibitions as we desire to take the Nigerian artists to greater heights in strengthening the ever vibrant Nigerian art circle.  We have also expanded our scope to include NGOs in curating, organizing of residence programmes, workshops as well as yearly exhibitions.  We have established ourselves rapidly as one of the best galleries in Nigeria, a meeting place for artists, collectors and enthusiasts of art”.  It is with these that 2019 hopes to harbour more new juices for stakeholders in this sector thereby creating room for more revenues.

    As for Abiodun Olaku, one of the next masters’, 2019 can only offer a renewed zeal for the visual and the art generally if the policy of government towards the art is allowed to breath.  He said pointedly: “Policy stability is what we need more seriously in 2019 to rise to a stable level in this sector.  But can that be guaranteed given the culture and attitude of government towards the arts?  Often there is no clear policy towards the arts; government’s direction in this regard is not always clear, it may not even be known.  We agree that the burden of the economy has been too heavy on the present government to even have enough time for other things”, he remonstrated.

    Yet, Olaku argued that this is the time for this government to battle to survive.  “And then art has not been in the front-burner.  This is a government that has been struggling to make people believe in it.  But if the government sets the necessary policy in place, this is a sector that can easily thrive on its own.  There is plenty of money in the visual and the art sector in Nigeria.  The sector is like a virgin land waiting to be tapped for the good of those involved in it and the nation generally.  All we need as from 2019 are good and plausible policies to promote this sector and enable artists operate without let or hindrance”.

    He also believes that this hope can be realizable when government people take into cognizance the roles of stakeholders in their policy formulations.  “Government should work with the right stakeholders to achieve the desired aim for us all.  Whenever visitors come to our Universal Studios of Arts from outside they wonder why we should gather artists from all over and train them free-of-charge.  Yet government asks us to pay rent for this piece of land we put in to shape by ourselves:  It must not be so come 2019”, Olaku said.  This is the time to harbour a big stride for this sector that has the largest number of followers in the art exhibition market in black Africa.  For them 2019 will be a year to discover more ways to recycle wastes into artworks to create more wealth:  It will be a year to also resort to the use of water hycienth to device artworks in different modes, shapes and styles.

    As for Bolanle Austen-Peters of Terra Kulture, Lagos, 2019 will be more historic for her.  While the Minister of Culture and Information, Lai Mohammed was at her centre the other day to watch Moremi the Musical, his prayer is that Austen-Peters finds more ways to create historical issues into stage performances.

    Every year, she tries to research into time to create some beautiful and enticing and exciting musicals.  It is hoped that she would do more next year thereby creating more jobs for Nigerian stage actors and actresses, dancers, stage directors, costumiers and more.  It will be more enthralling.

    There are more historical episodes to choose from.  As an expert and a deep lover of historical figures, Austen-Peters is indeed poised to surprise the world with more epoch-making musicals that may still find their ways to Broadway, a place where the best theatre is welcome and well-celebrated.

    The lull in the activities of the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC) will be over come 2019. The acting Director of the centre Mrs. Ndidi Aiemienwauu told The Nation that there will be more collaboration with all the countries that participated in FESTAC ’77 to make CBAAC a truly Pan-African centre. She said: “We are dedicated to cater for the Black race after Festac ’77. This we will do with renewed vigour come 2019. We will now bid to recover the Festac emblem and other rare art works kept in foreign museums and so on. We will also reopen the UNESCO Depository library which was shut down before. In all, CBAAC will now enjoy world attention through its world-class programmes come 2019. It will be a year for us to get our grove back,” she said.

    All in all, the stakes are high for the culture sector to thrive.  Even as the economy seems to face more hurdles, stakeholders look forward to a year when they will be forced to use their plan B to make the necessary strides to elevate the fortunes of the sector higher than ever before.

  • ‘ANA plot of land in Abuja intact’

    In this encounter with Edozie Udeze, Mallam Denja Abdullahi, the President of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) clears the air on the developmental stage of the Association’s plot of land in Abuja

    What is state of ANA plot of land in Abuja now?

    It is about 40 percent completed and work is still on-going with a completion date of May 2019 envisaged baring all unforeseen circumstances. Construction work actually started in August 2017 after the foundation laying ceremony around May 2017.The land is in a very challenging topography and the developer and his sub-contractors are doing their best. There is a land committee set up by the instrument of the congress of the Association overseeing the development. This committee was put in place in January 2016 and they have been closely monitoring the work of the developer on the land and intervening in construction related matters arising from the land. The level of development achieved on the land now is due to the painstaking work of the committee and the supervision of the ANA National Executive Council.

    There is this rumour that past leadership of the association refused to develop the place. How true is this?

    There is no truth to that rumour. The land was given in 1985 by General Mamman Vatsa and he was arrested about a week after for a coup and killed afterwards. There was nothing anyone could have done in those early period and through out the military era which ended in 1999. Remember after Vatsa was killed by the IBB Junta,Ken Saro Wiwa was later killed by the Abacha Junta, so what could ANA do on that land located in Abuja where the Juntas held sway? This was a writers ‘body then in the trenches against the military. At the return to democracy during the Abubakar Gimba’s era as president of ANA, the Association visited OBJ and put forward the issue of the land and OBJ made a mockery of the request put to him by saying ANA should consider itself lucky to have such a large plot of 60.9 hectares in Abuja when he as President had none. Abubakar Gimba’s exco managed to secure the legal titles to the land during their tenure. It was during the Olu Obafemi as President tenure of which i was part of that an attempt was made to begin development by advertising for bids and entering into a development agreement with Home Securities Ltd which could not begin development due to its lack of capacity and partly due to the discovery that the land had been revoked without the Association being aware of it. Pressure was mounted by ANA on the FCT authorities and the land was restored but with some section excised for other usage by government. Still at that the issue of re-certification of all land in the FCT came up in 2003 and the developer hung on that and did nothing on the land. That was the situation on the ground until the Wale Okediran exco came on board in 2005. In 2007 that exco got the mandate from the congress to terminate the agreement with Home Securities and he took the Association to court for breach of contract. The case was in court from 2007-2012 throughout the tenure of the Jerry Agada led exco into the Remi Raji-led exco during whose time a favourable court judgement was secured for ANA. Even during the Jerry Agada exco between 2009-2011 the Goodluck Jonathan regime cultivated ANA when he started his Bring Back the Book Campaign as part of the strategies to win the 2011 election.ANA put forward the issue of securing government assistance to develop the land as a bargain and the government agreed to give a grant of $250 million dollars. A letter was written by ANA to that effect and duly submitted but after the election was won, no one heard about the matter again. On coming in and after the court case was won in 2012 the Remi Raji exco went on to engage the present developer who actually moved into the site and began the laying of infrastructure, secured an approved building plan from the FCT, developed engineering and structural designs, fought off vicious land grabbers who have encroached on the land and even duped people of millions of naira on it and began clearing, cutting and sand filling of the site. That went on throughout the tenure of the Remi Raji executive until i came on board in 2016. The logical thing therefore for my exco to do was to insist that real development must commence and that is what is going on now as we speak. The story i have narrated is the true story about that land. I can see no unwillingness on the part of any past executive to develop the land. Each past leadership tackled what it met on ground.

    What is the role of the current ANA executives to ensure the land is made into meaningful use?

    Development has commenced and we are determined to see it through to completion so that the facilities can become usable to generate funds for the Association. On the land presently we have burgeoning structures that will later translate into a conference centre, library, shopping malls, offices, auditorium, writers’ residency chalets, 50- one bedroom en-suite apartments for rent and all other structures. The national secretariat of the Association has been moved since March this year from the National Theatre in Lagos to a completed red-brick structure on the land that now houses it. The land is already being meaningfully used to run the affairs of the Association and to oversee whatever is going on there as it affects constructions and developments.

    If finally developed what are the facilities we expect to see there?

    The facilities will be as i mentioned earlier but there is still a lot of space for more facilities to be added in the future phase of development.

    How are  you raising the funds for the projects and the facilities?

    The development agreement that ANA has  presently entered into with KMVL, the major developer has built into it the project funding arrangement and even the management of the fully -built facilities later on.

    ..Is it really true that the original plot has been altered or tampered with?

    The government that gave the land in the first place which was at 60.9 hectares cut it into about 57 hectares and when the present developer took possession in 2012 and went to the Abuja land authorities to verify documents and papers discovered that the size of the land has been further reduced to 36.9 hectares.

    If so why and by who and for what purpose?

    Government owns all land and they determine the use of land at any point in time. This is a land that has been undeveloped for many years in a prime area in Abuja. The excised parts have been allocated for other uses by government over the years. We have a Presidential police barracks on some part of the original land, roads corridors, green areas, allocations to other allotees etc. We in ANA have no control over that. Our own task is to ensure we develop what we have a title to now.

     

  • ‘This literary campaign must go round’

    In this encounter with Edozie Udeze, Mallam Denja Abdullahi, the President of Association of Nigerian Authors throws more light on the grants that have helped to extend the frontiers of Yusuf Ali literary campaigns to the grassroots

    How has this grant endured?

    The ANA/Yusuf Ali literary awareness campaign has endured because the funding has been constant and comes at a predictable time every year. That enables us to plan ahead each year and gives us room to innovate and create a sustainable pattern across the country. The literary philanthropy of Yusuf Ali met a robust structure of ANA on ground which covers the whole of Nigeria. It is therefore possible to create impact at the same time with the project across the country. The project has also introduced healthy competition among our chapters across the country as they overreach themselves to do better each year. The monitoring process that we have introduced along the line has also contributed to the project sustainability.

    What year did it start?

    The ANA/ Yusuf Ali literary awareness campaign actually started in 2012 when I was Vice President of ANA. There was nothing as sustainable as that in the history of ANA  except for our annual convention which we are often not too sure of each year as we fish around for funds to host it unlike the ANA/ Yusuf Ali literary awareness campaign with sure funding. The campaign has impacted positively in the area of mentoring the young and school going populace by encouraging them to read and write. We cover nothing less than five thousand students in 100 schools across the country each year in the course of executing the campaign . At the beginning the focus was on secondary schools for some years, then we had focused  workshop for universities students and we later moved to focusing on tertiary institutions, then into the  publication of children titles which we have used to drive another by-project called A-Book-A-Child nationwide project. From all these activities including what we are using the fund for this year( capacity building workshop on innovations in contemporary literary awareness campaign and media awareness) you could see that the ANA/ Yusuf Ali literary awareness campaign has been very impactful nationwide.

    How did you arrive at the projects to embark upon with the money?

    The brainstorming to get new things to do with the grant each year ad-infinitum is what we are gathering to do in the capacity building workshop. For ANA chapter chairmen we will be having in Ilorin later this April 2018.Mind you, we do not just receive the grant from Yusuf Ali and go to sleep. Our chapters do provide matching grant to whatever they receive as sub-grant from the Yusuf Ali main grant. Yusuf Ali gives us N3million each year which is not small at all considering the regular brick wall you meet whenever you try to raise funds from governments and other corporate bodies. By the time you add or cost what our chapters raise to do their bits with the seed sub-grant received, the total money spent each year may translate to about N10 million naira or more. But without the initial  grant from Yusuf Ali, the build up would not have been possible.

    So the grants have prospered the association?

    From the success of the Yusuf Ali grant to ANA, we have seen how helpful regular grant can go a long way to stabilize an association like ANA and make it very functional and accountable.  And that is why we are all clamouring for the institution of an endowment fund for the arts in Nigeria. The Western world is  wizened already on the importance of  regular and sustained funding for the arts by governments, individuals and public and private institutions. Governments in the third world countries like Nigeria go about as if they do not owe the arts anything. The  arts, literature and culture of a country  will eventually go  extinct if the  government of a particular country thinks they do not need special attention and dedicated intervention. Come to think of it, some of the best features of our cultural heritage and creativity are being kept alive by foreign grants and foreign funding facilitated by  those who know the importance of heritage sustainability. I always say the arts always have a way of making indelible the contributions of those who support it. Our use of the Yusuf Ali grant over the years has shown that you can do a lot in the arts with a gift sincerely given and the reward to the giver will definitely be more than whatever is given.Many Yusuf Alis are not there today because people are afraid of poverty and they are ignorant of where they can leave their indelible memories for generations unborn. Most people with money in Nigeria hoard it for  their immediate families or fritter it away on mundane things that will turn to dust within a generation following their demise.The kind of Yusuf Ali is rare in our clime as not many  persons are  as  astute and intelligent like him to know that life is ephemeral and that what endures are the selfless pursuits you engage in. The corporate bodies are not different, they are forever in search of profit without thinking of responsibility to their communities. They commit huge funds to beauty pageants and Ajasco  dance shows on the streets but avoid the theatre, film, literature and the likes because of their short-sighted thinking that nothing will be gained in return.