By Anote Ajeluorou
WITH ‘Engaging the Fringe’ as
theme, this year’s Ake Arts and Book
Festival opened yesterday at June 12 Cultural Centre, Abeokuta, Ogun State.
However, one regret the Lola Shoneyin-inspired festival has, and which is also
widespread among festival organisers in the country, is that funding is hard to
secure. But Shoneyin is lucky to have generated support from outside the
country.
Although there is some level of support coming
from Etisalat, Park in by Radison and Ogun State Government, funding from European
Union is the main driver of the festival. This reflects the premium both
government and corporate Nigeria place on cultural production. With President
Muhammadu Buhari completely sidelining culture in his ministerial configuration,
it couldn’t be worse for a sector Wole Soyinka aptly called an ‘orphan’.
As Shoneyin put it at a briefing last week to
announce the festival, “We suffer from leaders not supporting creativity as
much as there’s creativity on this African continent”.
However, for the author of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, Ake Arts and Book Festival “creates a
space where Africa intellectuals, actors, scholars and writers converge for an
honest conversation, to engage with one another and the outside world. My own
personal experience organizing this festival is one of pure joy seeing
wonderful people coming together to discuss. We don’t have enough high level
conversation going on in Africa on issues plaguing us. It’s always about
personal biases and religious convictions. Yes, bring your biases, but listen
to the other side of the argument as well.
“The writing space in Africa, Nigeria is very
small. So, it’s important to engage all Africans to talk not only about what is
wrong with it, but to also celebrate the literature”.
One
exciting aspect of this year’s festival, according to Shoneyin, is the
festival’s collaboration with an oil service company, Marine Platforms, to
bring writings from northern Nigeria to the mainstream. Beyond a prize to be
instituted, Marine Platforms will help distribute books to schools in the
northern as a way of encouraging reading and writing.
“We will partner with Marine Platforms to
send books to school libraries in northern Nigeria so as to help those children
to be the best they can be,” Shoneyin said. “We will get 200 children to Ake, and get them involved in the book activities
in collaboration with Lafarge Cement Company in creating awareness about
environmental issues. All the authors to the festival will go to schools to
inspire children”.
Ake Arts
and Book Festival will witness a large gathering of writers, artists and
filmmakers from Africa and Europe in the ancient city of Abeokuta from which
the festival derives its name. As Shoneyin said of the festival’s name, Ake, “It’s from Abeokuta, a sort of
magical place marooned in time. I’m interested in how best to retain the
quaintness of the place. It’s also about drawing people to the countryside”.
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