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 38TH
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIAN AUTHORS(ANA),HELD AT
THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTRE,I .M.T. ENUGU,ENUGU STATE ON THE 1ST 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 38th 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 35th
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.
