Keeping our promises to the conclave of Writers

KEEPING OUR PROMISES TO THE CONCLAVE OF WRITERS

BEING AN ADDRESS BY MALLAM DENJA ABDULLAHI , PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIAN AUTHORS(ANA) PRESENTED AT THE GRAND OPENING CEREMONY OF THE 38^TH INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIAN AUTHORS(ANA),HELD AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE,I .M.T. ENUGU,ENUGU STATE ON THE 1^ST  NOVEMBER,2019.

PROTOCOL

It is an honour for me today to be addressing this distinguished gathering of writers and intellectuals at the opening of the 38^th convention of the Association, historic for being a sort of homecoming to the Association, established in 1981 around this precinct by the patriarch of modern African literature, Chinua Achebe and others .  I have in 2016 equally had the honour to address, as President of ANA, the 35^th Anniversary Convention of the Association held in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. This particular convention is auspicious for me and my team in the National Executive Council of ANA as it is valedictory; and therefore calls for reflection and a look back at how far we have come with the promises we made when we sought and were given the mandate to lead in 2015. 

My campaign manifesto, which later became the guiding principle and blueprint for our administration, was tagged “The pragmatic Deliverables” in which we promised the followings:

·        Inclusiveness in the administration of the Association

·        Returning ANA to its fundamentals as  a writers’ union

·        Developing an 8- year strategic plan for the Association

·        Reviewing the administrative structures and organs of the Association

·        Reviewing the administration of ANA literary Prizes

·        Repackaging the developmental objectives of the Association

·        Unbundling the annual international convention of the Association

·        Improving the financial status of the Association

·        Enhancing effective programming of the Association’s activities at both chapters and national levels

·        Staking ANA ‘s claims in the governance of the country

·        Engaging in general advocacy for the improvement of the creative and cultural industries

·        Building of the Mamman Vatsa writers’ Village in Abuja

·        Fully incorporating the ANA Publishing company

·        Internationalizing the operations of the Association

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen ,I am proud to announce to you that we have delivered on all but one of the 14 things  we promised to do for the Association in the four year cycle of our administration. I will leave you to validate this claim of ours by doing a forensic analysis of our scorecard published in the ANA Review Journal of 2019 available at this convention and matching it with what has happened under our watch within this four years.  Nevertheless, I will highlight a few legacies this administration will be leaving behind and they include:

ü  A strategic plan document(2017-2022) developed in 2016 with massive inputs by all stakeholders in the Association

ü  Production of a documentary film “Dancing Mask: The ANA Story” between 2016/2017 that tells the history and achievements of the Association and narrated by stakeholders in the Association over the years.

ü  Formation of a National Advisory Council for the Association

ü  Establishment of A-Book-A-Child nationwide project that started since 2016 and still on-going and the Young Writers Mentoring Scheme

ü  Berthing of a strategic partnership in 2017 with Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu-Alike Ikwo, in Ebonyi State for the annual hosting of a national conference/workshop on the expanding frontiers of Nigerian Literature. Two highly successful editions of the conference/workshop have held in 2018 and 2019 and only a few days ago an MOU was formally signed at the campus of the University endorsed by the Vice Chancellor and ANA for the institutionalization of this very important partnership.

ü  Breaking the jinx by developing a digital membership database to enhance the operations of the Association that relates to membership mobilization and development

ü  Building on ANA Land in Mpape-Abuja , which has lied fallow since 1985 when it was given by Mamman Vatsa, with  structures that are fast rising and on completion will give ANA its fully functional Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village. The actual development of this dream-come-true project started in 2017 under our watch.

           Distinguished Ladies and gentlemen, in spite of whatever we have been able to put in place which have been made possible through the hard work and sacrifices of our team in the national executive council, the regular advice from elders of the Association and the cooperation and support from the generality of members, it is evident that more things could still be done and we cannot sincerely do it all. The succeeding national executive council that will be elected at this convention will need to work on the areas of gap and find a way to the path of self-sufficiency and the re-modeling of the working capacity of this Association for optimum achievements.

            Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, within the year since we last met, we lost three icons in our literary firmament, the inimitable poet Ikeogu Ike, the very cerebral scholar, writer and profound public intellectual, Prof Pius Adesanmi and the grand old man of letters and foremost pioneer modern African poet, Dr Gabriel Okara. May I crave your indulgence to rise in a minute silence and pray for the repose of their souls.

The cloud was not always ravenous during the closing year as it bore rains that fell on some of our committed members such as Prof Idris Amali, a pioneer member of this Association and a fellow of ANA, who was appointed the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Federal University ,Lafai; and Mallam Al-Bishak(MON), one of the then young persons that was with titans like Achebe and others at the beginnings of this Association ,who was also appointed a Professor at the Federal University ,Lafia. We felicitate with these long standing members of ANA and others who may have had cause to celebrate one milestone or the other in recent times.

There is a long list of persons and organizations to thank for the modest successes we have been able to record during the tenure of this administration. I will not turn this speech to an acknowledgement page of a thesis or dissertation. However, let us thank the leadership and members of ANA Enugu and the LOC for braving the daunting task of hosting us in a year we have introduced a tasking reform in the way we hold our convention and in a year  in  which in jostling for leadership positions often make opaque the task ahead of us all in maintaining a dynamic organization. I will single out for mentioning, among the legion of our active supporters within and without the Association, Mallam Yusuf Ali(SAN) whose annual and life-long benefaction to this Association, which commenced in 2012, has in so many ways given a measure of stability to the operations of this Association. I thank our team of past presidents for their invaluable support and advice and members of the National Advisory Council. I most sincerely thank on behalf of my team, the members of the Association nationwide who have cooperated with us and helped to implement all the programmes and projects we have done and have borne the bitter pills of our experimental streak with the full understanding that all is geared to improve the status and capacity of our Association. Members of the media have done a lot to give visibility to this Association and the contributions of many of them to ANA have been life long, We sincerely cherish them.

I will end this speech that is getting fearfully long , like all valedictory speech, by putting a lie to the oft-bandied accusation of ageism against ANA by illustrating with the life of the keynote speaker of today, Prof E.E Sule. E.E. Sule at the ANA convention held in the year 2000 in Jos, Plateau State, was a starry-eyed undergraduate in the Department of English, University of Jos ,who came to that convention with a tape recorder to have interviews and interactions with writers at that convention, some well- known and others just coming up. By then one Denja Abdullahi, who left that same department of Sule’s at the University of Jos, a decade before as the Best Graduating Student, had become an aficionado of ANA in Kebbi State and the FCT. Sule within a relatively short time became a full -fledged member of ANA and participated actively in its programmes and activities and later turned out to be an award-winning writer across literary genres and a foremost, prolific and profound scholar and critic of African literature. Sule’s teachers and teachers of his teachers are here with us today. He is  today our keynote speaker at this convention  and undoubtedly the youngest to have ever delivered a keynote speech at a national convention of the Association in its 38 years old history. ANA has within its fold many successful writers, scholars and persons in other professions who joined ANA as very young persons and grew within the Association as they helped the Association to grow too. Today some young persons, instead on coming into the Association to learn its rudiments and bring about the change they desire into it by contributing their youthful energy and creativity, display irreverence for the rigour of order and methods. They rather prefer to immediately seize the space before even settling in to contribute anything and when they do not succeed, they go on-line to the free digital space to accuse ANA of ageism and elitism. ANA that I know and that I joined as a young person before I started going bald, is a place for both the old and the young . Both the old and the young are essential to the growth of ANA as the Yoruba saying which goesthus: “it is with the wisdom of the old and the cleverness of the young that a good and sustainable town is always founded and guided.”

Thank you all for listening.