Address by the President of the Association of Nigerian Authors(ANA),MALLAM DenjA Abdullahi, on the occasion of the Project Media Tour/Press Conference on the Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village

ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIAN AUTHORS(ANA),MALLAM DENJA ABDULLAHI,ON THE OCCASION OF THE PROJECT MEDIA TOUR/PRESS CONFERENCE ON THE MAMMAN VATSA WRITERS’ VILLAGE ,MPAPE, ABUJA ON SATURDAY 5^TH OCTOBER,2019.

Protocol.

Sometime in 1985, the then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Major General Mamman Jiya Vatsa, himself a passionate poet and nationalist, led the founding fathers and members of the Association to this same precinct to engage in what was tagged “the commissioning of the writers village in Abuja.”  Vatsa was a great visionary of the Federal Capital Territory and wanted a pride of place for writers in what he envisioned Abuja would eventually become. Therefore, he donated or awarded 60.9 hectares of prime land close to the center of the City to a community of writers to which he was a proud member. We all knew what happened to Vatsa barely a week after he led writers here.

Since that period of Vatsa’s leap of faith till now, a lot has happened to the writers’ body and the land on which we are standing on today. It has been a tale of flight away from here, hotly pursued by maximum rulers; it has been a story of lack of capacity, failed promises, betrayals, revocation, re-allocation, long-drawn litigations and brazen trespasses. It will interest you to know that what we have left today from the original 60.9 hectares is about 36.9 hectares. The story between the first and the second figures is also a well- known one in our Association, and if you had look around very well, you may have caught some glimpses of it.

On the 24^th of January,2013, after surviving a long-drawn  four years court battle over this same land with an erstwhile developer(Home Securities Limited), the Association did a ground breaking ceremony and a turning of the sod, under the auspices of the Remi Raji –led ANA and the current developer, KMVL, to signify our determination to get things going. That was the state of affair until my Executive Council came on stream in November 2015. My Executive Council implemented the mandate given by the congress of the Association at the 2015 convention to constitute a land development committee. This was done at our inaugural meeting in January 2016 in Abuja where we also asked the present developer to present a brief on the prevailing status of developments on the land. The ANA Land committee also met later that year with the developer and initiated a monitoring system to fast track developments on the land. All these initial activities of the Executive Council and the land development committee culminated in a Foundation Laying Ceremony that was held ON FRIDAY 26^TH MAY, 2017 to announce to the world that the period of actual development on the land towards realizing the dream of Vatsa and that of all Nigerian writers had come.

 Actual development eventually took off around August 2017 with a view to realize the projects as laid out in the MOU between ANA and KMVL entered into in 2013 to give ANA on a 5 hectare land a national headquarters complex, a 50 Room Hotel, residency chalets,500-Seater auditorium, conference centre , E-libraries, ANA State offices complex, archives and depositories and many other facilities befitting a writers’ resort. Our strategic plan for 2017-2022, which this administration developed in 2016 with buying- in from ANA stakeholders  has the development of this land as a priority project and appropriately phased. This administration also produced a documentary film “Dancing Mask: The ANA Story” in which the ANA land and its development was given a prominent feature. Also, another 15 minutes film focusing mainly on the land and its initial developments of 2017 was shot and with the main documentary were hosted on ANA website www.ana-nigeria .com for public viewing. In order to keep an eye on progress made on the land and fast track possible developments, the National Executive Council from the donations of N1.5m received at the foundation laying ceremony in May, 2017  from some friends of ANA who attended the event, gave out the sum to the developer for the building  of a temporary national secretariat for the Association to enable us move the national headquarter from Lagos to Abuja. The National Secretariat of ANA was effectively moved in March, 2018 from the National Theatre Complex Iganmu, Lagos to the building in which we are having this press conference today. In the course of all these and in the last four years, the ANA Land committee has met at various times  with the developer, alongside the monitoring system regularly and  religiously carried out and have copiously reported with the national executive council about developments on the land to the congress of the Association at ANA Conventions AGM. These reports have been made with a view at all time in keeping the congress up to date on the developments on the land and getting further necessary mandates for the pushing of the way forward on the land. 

It was the dream of this present National Executive Council of ANA initially to complete this project in its entirety, at least the first phase or commission some structures into full functionality. It was a commissioning ceremony we had thought we would do before we quit office in November,2019. Based on this and in agreement with the developer, we set out well thought-out developmental timelines in black and white, which the vagaries of climate, Abuja land development bureaucracy, engineering hitches and general harsh economic environment have made impossible to meet. However, our unwavering commitment to see this development to its end has taken us this far which we have deemed  necessary to showcase to the ANA public and to our friends in the media.  

This ANA land matter since the inception of its being given in 1985 up till this moment has been a subject of myth-making, mindless and unfounded accusations, mostly against its minders in the successive national executive councils over the years. This wild tale in broad daylight has been taken to the dizzying height of arrant falsehood in the devil-may-care political maneuvering of some persons as they battle others in the build –up to attain power in ANA at the forthcoming elections in the Association in November,2019. May I reiterate here that the Denja Abdullahi-led National Executive Council of ANA has kept a verifiable trail of all its activities on this land since the first day it took office and has executed its mandate as given by the ANA congress to the best interest of this Association in this ANA land matter and all other matters.

I will at this juncture salute and appreciate the efforts of successive leaderships of this Association who have kept this dream alive in the peculiar ways that the extenuating circumstances have allowed them. I salute our members for their unending vigilance on this matter of ‘ANA LAND IN ABUJA,” an ever fixed item in our agenda at our annual convention since 1985. I particularly single out for commendation the successive team of ANA Legal Advisers over the years and other professionals within the Association who have rendered valuable services pro-bono, just to ensure we do not lose the land. However, no one, not even this National Executive Council, during whose time , one block was actually laid over the other, can arrogate to itself the success that may have been made on the land today. The struggle since 1985 has been a collective one and so should it remain if we are to one day gather here soon to commission in a grand manner this on-going project and move into the next phase of an Association with properties that will generate the much needed income to power literary developments in our land.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have stepped into the fringes of the promised  land but we are not on sure footing yet. The incoming executive after us needs a lot of work to do to see this project to the end and will need every support and encouragement from the generality of ANA members. The Association still needs the Federal and the States governments, corporate institutions, national and international donor agencies, individuals and groups to join hands with ANA as it builds a place for literature and culture in Abuja. The period of being romantic about a land bequeathed to us by a benevolent poet-soldier is long over; we are in an age where a hard -nosed business option has to be continually taken to fully build the land and realize the vision behind the giving.

Thank you for listening.