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The organisers of
the book review for Nnedi Okorafor’s novel, ‘Zarah the Windseeker’,
kept to time. While some supposed attendees were only just arriving the
venue, the one hour thirty minutes event had ended; giving adherents of
“African time” something to think about.

The event recorded
a low turnout, however, as its timing clashed with the highly popular
BookJam @ Silverbird, holding only a few kilometres away. Farafina have
introduced the new book reading and discussion event, in the hope it
will become a permanent monthly fixture at Terra Kulture, Victoria
Island, Lagos. Tagged ‘Book Reviews @Terra’, the session debuted on
June 26 with Okorafor’s book.

Platform for discourse

“It’s not just
about the author; we look at the stories and try to glean those aspects
that relate to our culture and background,” said a Farafina
representative. On-air-personality, writer, and musician, Tosyn
Bucknor, was on hand to read excerpts from ‘Zahrah the Windseeker’, a
young adult fantasy /science novel about a girl with superhuman
abilities.

A forest with
computerised flowers and a large, pink, talking frog are not things you
will find in too many books; but discussing the relevance of living in
a world of make-believe, and its relationship to African customs,
topped the agenda at the pilot edition.

The almost empty
venue came alive at 3pm as the moderator started to introduce the
topics of the day. Considering the genres of science fiction and
fantasy, a member of the audience drew comparisons between similarities
between the characters in the blockbuster film, ‘Avatar’ and D.O.
Fagunwa’s ‘Forest of a Thousand Deamons’.

He also suggested
that Africans are the creators of the fantasy genre. Another audience
member complained that while a movie like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ is
celebrated, other stories incorporating fantastical elements are seen
as a propagation of witchcraft.

Hidden from the wind seeker

“‘Zahrah the
Windseeker’ is about hiding things,” observed Bucknor. “The parents
were hiding the existence of the forest and the market from Zahrah in
the book. This is how we protect our children; by lying to them, [to]
prevent them from doing some things.”

She asked members
of the audience to give examples of ‘tall tales’ told to them by
adults. Many examples were offered by the audience, including: how not
cleaning lines drawn on sand could attract witches, or affect one’s
mother’s breast size; the bizarre notion that whistling at night can
attract snakes; and the one that says: ‘if you eat while standing, the
food goes straight down to the feet.’

Striking a balance

The discussion
moved on to the ability of a Nigerian writer to write fantasy while
still remaining relevant in the African context. An aspiring writer in
the audience said, “Just write, don’t try to strike a balance.” He
suggested that an attempt to strike a balance could lead to a loss of
originality. “You need to know what you’re writing about, otherwise it
would be shallow,” said another discussant.

All agreed
eventually that the most important factor when writing fantasy is the
sincerity of the voice of the writer – as it is through this that the
author’s originality is perceived.

New kid on the block

Book Reviews @Terra
has joined the league of monthly literary events in Lagos and Abuja.
“We might schedule the next one for Friday or Sunday… We are still
trying to find the day that works best for us.” Fixing the time-clash
with the more established BookJam, would be a start.

The clamour for a
review of the national policy on the financing of the culture sector
has gained new momentum, following a two-day conference, held at the
Bolingo Hotel in Abuja on June 22 and 23. Held under the aegis of the
Ministry of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, the Stakeholders
Forum on the Review the National Policy of Culture focused on ‘Taxation
and the Arts’ as its theme. The sub-theme of the conference was
‘Empowering the Professionals in the Creative Industries’.

Speaking at the
forum’s opening ceremony on Tuesday, June 22, Culture Minister Abubakar
Sadiq Mohammed said, “I came to the Ministry to discover that the
Cultural Policy… has been undergoing a process of renewal for some
time now.” Sadiq called for “contributions and resolutions that will
promote the Nigerian artistes and create new avenue for funding their
activities through well articulated tax incentives and other avenues.”

The Minister set
out the aims and objectives of the forum, including: a look at the
relationship between the Arts and the Economy; to see how the creative
industries can benefit from Corporate Nigeria; to define and recommend
appropriate fiscal policies, especially tax, which would be of benefit
to the creative industries; and to discuss the need for an Endowment
Fund for the Arts.

“The outcome of the
deliberations will certainly form part of the Nigerian National Policy
on Culture,” said Sadiq, as he rounded off his address. Also at the
opening ceremony was the Minister of Information and Communications,
Dora Akunyili, who noted that “tax and taxation can be creatively used
to encourage the creative industries.” To underscore the close working
relationship between her ministry and Sadiq’s, Akunyili observed that,
had Nigeria been unable to afford many ministries, Culture and Tourism
would have been under this same ministerial umbrella as Information and
Communication.

Also at the opening
event were the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Culture, Sheidu
B. Ozigis; and Chairman, House Committee on Tourism and Culture, K.G.B
Oguakwa – both of whom attended the two days of the forum, the latter
presiding on the adoption of the conference’s communiqué at the end.
Other government attendees over the two days included Edo State
Commissioner for Information and Culture, Abdul Oroh; and Cyril
Chukwuka, a director at the Ministry of Finance.

The papers

In his background
paper titled ‘The Journey So Far,’ the Federal Director of Culture,
Nkanta George Ufot, set out the chequered history of the 1988 Draft
National Policy of Culture, telling the high level culture stakeholders
present that, “We need to move forward”. Ufot stated the main purpose
of the conference: an examination of Section Four of the policy.
“Whatever comes out of this workshop will enable us to take the next
step and will help us in completing a National Policy of Culture in
this country,” he declared.

Other papers
delivered during the conference were: ‘Taxation and the Arts –
Empowering the Art Professionals’ by Abiola Sanni; ‘Rebranding
Nigeria’s National Endowment for the Arts Act of 1991 for Service and
Effectiveness’ by Frank Aig-Imoukhuede (Pioneer CEO, National Council
for Arts and Culture); and ‘Government and the Management of Culture:
Endowment of the Arts and Taxation’ by Ahmed Yerima.

Tax and taxation

“The importance of
taxation cannot be over-emphasised in the Nigerian economy,” said
Sanni, a lecturer on Taxation at the University of Lagos. “Tax is an
instrument of social engineering. We want to look at how we can use tax
and taxation to empower the arts.”Before exploring the many ways in
which taxation could be put to the service of the arts, Sanni noted the
fact that there is no art-specific tax law in this country. Therefore,
there are no special exemptions for the arts, and artists are subject
to the general rules. Later in the conference, Olusola Omotayo of Chams
Plc revealed that the company, famous for sponsoring theatre
adaptations of D.O. Fagunwa’s novels over the last two years, received
no tax incentives for their effort. “We paid tax fully,” said Mrs.
Omotayo, an experience she described as “unfortunate”. She further
disclosed that Chams is taking a break from its Theatre Series this
year.

The Corporate
Nigeria discussion panel was notable for the absence of representatives
from companies invited, with the exception of Chams. Glo, United Bank
of Africa (UBA), MTN, Guarantee Trust Bank and Ecobank failed to show.
“Corporate Nigeria does not believe in brand Nigeria – if they were
here I would say it. If this were South Africa [the absent CEOS] would
all be here,” said Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, President of the African Movie
Academy. She observed that in South Africa, MTN spends a lot on
promoting the arts, not just music, as the company does in Nigeria.

Her concerns were
echoed by other speakers. “Those sponsoring music in Nigeria are doing
it for self promotion purposes, and to the detriment of other forms of
music,” declared Ben Tomoloju. He decried the disproportionate spending
on Sport vis-a-vis the arts, asking, “What has been the per capital
contribution of sport to the economy compared to culture?” Calling for
a participatory relationship between artists and media practitioners on
the funding of the culture sector, Tomoloju cautioned that taxation can
also be counter-productive. He cited as example the requirement that
students seeking university admission must produce their parent’s tax
clearance form, asking, “What if the parent has no job?”

Still on taxation,
Olu Ajayi, who said, “I don’t consider my art as luxury, my art is a
serious business,” spoke about the need for systems and structures for
any tax regime to work. Artists, he said, cannot currently include
Value Added Tax when they sell an artwork because they have no VAT
number. He called for workshops and seminars to educate artists about
processes, noting that many cannot fulfil the requirements for travel
visas as they have no banking culture. Ajayi also cautioned against a
sweeping call for tax rebates in the culture sector. “There are certain
sectors that cannot enjoy tax rebate because they are profit making
ventures and they are based on art. You can’t run a gallery and say you
won’t pay tax – when you’re selling paintings for millions?”

Endowment for the Arts

Delivering his
paper, Ahmed Yerima said, “You don’t talk about tax and taxation
without having a system of endowment on the ground. So, what we’re
doing is simply putting the cart before the horse.” The Vice Dean,
School of Performing Arts, Kwara State University, said the issue of
endowment for the arts needed “passion”. And passion characterised
during the forum’s session on an endowment fund. “This requires
standing,” said Frank Aig-Imoukhuede, when responding to a lone voice
that asked whether there was a need for an endowment at all.

Most of the
speakers were united in their call for endowment. Uwa Usen, National
President of the Society of Nigerian Artists, said, “Even America great
as it is, they have so many endowments… The National Gallery of Art
has no gallery as there is no endowment. Let’s set up this endowment
and make it work.”

Is Abuja a 419 carnival?

Passion was also on
display in the tail end of the Corporate Nigeria session when, in
response to Tony Okoroji’s criticism of the Abuja Carnival, the
carnival’s artistic director Rasaki Ojo Bakare jokingly cited an Igbo
proverb: “If you see a dog in the dark, it always looks like a goat.
I’m sure [Okoroji] must have been looking at the Abuja Carnival in the
dark and so he’s not seeing properly.” The discussion grew more serious
when Aig-Imoukhuede spoke further on the carnival. “In Abuja, we have a
festival that pretends to have local content. And when visitors come
from abroad and try to see local content, they are told: ‘go to that
state, that’s where it is’. This is what we call 419. You spend N1bn
and make N2m… South Africa is staging the [World Cup] and is getting
money out of it. This is what is wrong with Abuja carnival,” said the
retired Director of Culture, who added that, “In my time, I staged the
most successful national festival on 1.177m naira.”

Pleading with the
moderator for the opportunity to respond, Rasaki Ojo Bakare said the
“dangerous assumptions” in the public space needed to be corrected.
“Since last year when I took over as director, the carnival has become
a private public driven project. Abuja Carnival 2009, we spent
125million and that money did not come from government. We generated
the money from carnival secretariat,” said Bakare.

The way forward

Many delegates
lamented the fact that the 1988 Cultural Policy, recommended for review
every eight years by UNESCO, is still a work-in-progress, two decades
on. “Individuals in the cultural sector in the last one-and-half decade
have not allowed things to move forward because of their own personal
interests along the line,” said Hilary Ogbechie, Deputy Director,
National Council for Arts and Culture. “This thing does not take 20
years, if government is sincere,” said Odutayo; while Iyen Agboifo
(President, Creative Design Guild) called for the setting up of a
pressure group, saying, “At every level, we have to lobby. There has to
be some consistent and persistent clamour for these things to get done.”

In a communiqué issued at the end of the forum, the conference
observed that: Section IV of the Culture Policy and the National
Endowment for the Arts Decree 1991 do not sufficiently address the
issues of funding in the sector. Government was asked to review both
provisions, as well as papers and reports from the forum, with a view
to achieving the conference’s aims. It was also recommended that an
advocacy group be set up to ensure that the Policy objectives are
implemented.

Nigerian artist, the Junkman from Africa, is building a replica of his Junkyard Museum of Awkward Things in Wales.

The museum, the original of which is in Lekki, Lagos, is being constructed at the Oriel Mostyn Gallery in Llandudno, where the artist began a three-month residency programme in May.

Also known as Dilomprizulike, the Junkman has been named by British newspaper, The Independent, as one of Africa’s 50 greatest cultural figures. This is the first time the Junkyard Museum will be seen outside Nigeria.

Junkman fashions his pieces from discarded materials – ‘junk’ in his usual parlance – and his museum is a “kind of artistic hospital”, where worthless objects are resuscitated and given a second life as art. The artist has described the Junkyard as an effort at “presenting the un-presentable; valuing the worthless; appreciating the depreciated; taking the outcasts inside; embracing the untouchable.”

In addition to its commentary on ecological issues, the museum is also a reflection on the disposable culture in a consumer society.

The construction of the Junkyard is the gallery’s International Project of the Year, and is sponsored by the Henry Moore Institute and the Arts Council of Wales.

Junkman said he will be using “local Welsh junk to cook their soup for them.” Using materials which he will source locally in the Welsh environment, the artist is working with educational groups and members of the public to bring his unique museum to life in Llandudno. Work is progressing on the museum which, after its completion, will go on display until October 16.

Attending the
opening ceremony of the Stakeholders’ Forum on Taxation and the Arts in
Abuja on June 22, Minister of Information and Communications, Dora
Akunyili, must have been buoyed up by her introduction to the podium.
Emcee Ronke Bello speculated publicly that the “able and vibrant”
Akunyili would eventually go for the top job in Nigerian politics,
something that caused many in the audience to look at one another. Did
Ms. Bello know something they didn’t know? The minister lapped it up.
“The men are all jealous now,” she joked.

Knee-jerk reaction

In her goodwill
message to the conference, the ‘rebranding icon’ observed that “the
knee-jerk reaction of most artists to the theme of the workshop is
bound to have negative repercussions.” This, coming from a minister
who, minutes before, had given a knee-jerk reaction of her own. “I want
to say something that bothered me when I was sitting down. A young girl
came out to sing. I would like to know the language. What language is
that?”

The singer, Itan –
a young woman rather than a “young girl” – had been the cultural
highlight of the opening ceremony. Somehow, in the melange of languages
(largely English and Yoruba) in which she had performed earlier,
Akunyili managed to sniff out a non-Nigerian language. To the
minister’s query, Itan answered from the audience that the language in
question came from Togo.

“This is totally
unacceptable,” said an indignant Akunyili. “Don’t talk. Don’t talk.
Keep quiet,” she commanded, when Itan tried to explain, pulling down
the only other woman to share the opening ceremony limelight with her.
“She sang in a foreign vernacular language and she wore a Ghanaian
attire. As far as I’m concerned, that is not how to sell our culture,”
pronounced Akunyili, and many in the audience clapped. She continued:
“So many musicians have been able to sell their culture, to sell their
country to the world. You remember in the 60s when Jamaican musicians
gave us the impression that Jamaica was like paradise, and that
attracted tourism to Jamaica. When I went to Jamaica about four, five
years ago, I was very disappointed. I didn’t see any paradise. It’s not
even as developed as Nigeria, yet the tourists are pouring in.”

Akunyili disclosed
that, as part of her Rebranding Nigeria project, she has been engaging
musicians about the need to project the country well. She claimed that
Eedris Abdulkareem who sang ‘Nigeria Jagajaga’ had promised never to
sing such again. Itan’s offence was not on the scale of ‘Nigeria
Jagajaga’, she conceded, “but it is a foreign vernacular language, and
employing a fabric that Ghanaians are known for.”

Diplomacy and
international relations are clearly not Akunyili’s strong point, or the
minister would have considered Nigeria-Ghana relations before frowning
on the Kente in public. It is doubtful whether her comments did
anything to further regional unity in West Africa. She failed to
recognise the Pan-Africanism symbolised by the Kente; and the
commonalities in West African clothing, languages, and cultures –
divided across the artificial borders of colonialism. Instead, she
focused on separateness in a sub-region where cultural influences
interflow. Her uncritical use of the word ‘vernacular’ for African
languages is also problematic; we are after all beginning to question
the colonialists’ relegation of our mother tongues into the
‘vernacular.’

Many in the
audience were by now debating, possibly questioning, Akunyili’s
pronouncement, because a somewhat disagreeable murmur rose in the
audience. But the deed was done, and might is right. Soon, there were
comings and goings by culture bigwigs, who held a quick meeting with
Itan at the back of the hall. It emerged that some kind of face-saving
deal had been made.

Cheap victory

“A good African
mother will not spare the daughter, and a child that wants to live long
will listen to advice,” the singer told the conference in a hurriedly
put-together segment. “People ask me: ‘why do you do African music? Why
can’t you do Rap music, why can’t you do Hip-Hop?’ But I tell them that
I’m proud of my culture. I love my culture, and that’s why I keep doing
African music. Today, I’ve learnt a lot from Her Excellency; and I
promise never, ever to do anything against my culture again.” Itan then
sang about Nigerian unity in Pidgin English and Yoruba; and ended up on
her knees in front of Akunyili, who smiled benevolently, appeased at
last.

Itan’s vision

But had it been
the intention of Itan (full name, Enitan Adebo) to insult Nigerian
culture? “No,” answered the singer, speaking to the press afterwards.
“Itan is a folklorist, a folk singer. She sings all kinds of songs from
every part – be it Nigeria, Togo, Uganda.” She revealed that she had
just returned from The Gambia, where she represented Nigeria in an
international cultural festival with 46 participating countries. She
won the cup.

“Itan stands for
unity among Africans,” she explained, adding that the Kente cloth had
been given to her by a Ghanaian fan. “He gave me the gift… to uphold
and to support what I am trying to preach in Africa. So, I decided to
put it on today. I thought it was part of rebranding.”

The singer spoke
passionately about the need to preserve African music, saying, “It’s
happening everywhere; Hip-Hop music is taking over African traditional
music in Ghana, in Nigeria, everywhere. So, I just want to preach my
own ‘rebranding’ to every youth out there in the Diaspora, in Africa –
that you have to be proud of who you are. If you are a Ghanaian,
Nigerian, Gambian – we are one body. We are one and our culture is one.
That is the vision of Itan.”

Itan’s manager,
Henrietta Ikediashi, said they had to do the “damage control” of Itan’s
apology to Dora Akunyili because “a minute can destroy the career
you’ve been building for long.” According to Ikediashi, “In trying to
preach oneness in Africa, we say to ourselves that as long as it is
African attire, we do not care where it comes from. But with that, we
can still project where we come from.”

Itan’s final word
on the scrape with Akunyili: “I don’t see that as putting down Nigerian
culture in any way.” The cultural decorations in the hall suggested
that conference organisers were closer to Itan than Akunyili in their
promotion of ‘Nigerian culture.’ Pinned to strips of aso-oke on the
walls were motifs of the Kora – a Malian musical instrument. Some of
the calabashes hung up had ‘Gimbiya’ inscribed on them – pointing to
their origin in The Gambia.

Perhaps, it is Dora Akunyili who needs to move away from her simplistic position about culture.

Three Nigerian writers have been shortlisted as possible winners of the Inaugural Penguin Prize for African Writing. Chika Ezeanya, Tanure Ojaide and NEXT columnist Pius Adesanmi feature on the shortlist of thirteen African writers. The prize comes with a cash award of R50000, a publishing contract with Penguin Books South Africa, and worldwide distribution via Penguin Group companies.

The competition, organised by Penguin Books South Africa, is broken into fiction and nonfiction categories, with a prize winner emerging from each category. Organizers had called for entries of unpublished full length works of between 60,000 and 100,000 words in length. Approximately 300 submissions were received from authors across the continent.

Shortlisted alongside the Nigerian authors are Ellen Banda Aaku (Zambia), Moraa Gitaa (Kenya), Shubnum Khan (South Africa), Isabella Morris (South Africa), and Mukoma wa Ngugi (Kenya, shortlisted for last year’s Caine Prize) in the fiction category; and South African writers Andrew Barlow, Ruth Carneson, Ahmed Mortiar, Anli Serfontein, and Tebogo Tlharipe for non-fiction.

Judges for the fiction category are Kole Omotoso, Director, Africa Diaspora Research Group, Johannesburg, and judge for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Africa; Harry Garba, author, poet and associate professor, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town; and Elinor Sisulu, author and adviser on democracy and human rights issues in Zimbabwe.

Redi Diko, South African columnist and broadcaster; Nic Dawes, veteran investigative and political reporter, and editor-in-chief of the Mail and Guardian Weekly; and Jonathan Jansen, Scholar-in-Residence at the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Johannesburg, and alumnus of Connell and Stamford Universities, will decide the winner of the Non-fiction category.

Winners of both categories will be announced on September 4, 2010 at the Mail and Guardian Literary Festival. Speaking on the rationale behind this maiden initiative, Penguin South Africa’s CEO Alison Lowry said, “Although this prize does not exclude established authors, we believe that there are new writers from Africa for whom Penguin can provide a platform, and in so doing we hope to reflect and showcase the diversity of voices on our continent both at home and abroad.”