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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.