The ageless prayer of Nigerian arts community to have an endowment fund for the sector seems to have been answered as the Federal Government has said it will institute it.
In most countries, the creative community benefit from such a fund, as the arts sector hardly blossoms without structured grants from government.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, gave the indication of government’s readiness to establish the fund, when he unveiled his ministry’s agenda on Sunday.
At the event held in Lagos, Mohammed gave a stewardship account, noting that the current intervention by the Central bank and other commercial banks to pump money into renovating and expanding the National Arts Theatre, Lagos, was a fruit of some processes the ministry had been undertaking in the past months.
Mohammed also noted that in current dispensation, the National Policy on Culture and that of Tourism would be activated.
Below is the text of his speech:
Good afternoon gentlemen. I am delighted to be here, and to meet with
you again. I have called this meeting to enable us rub minds on how to
move the Tourism and Culture Sector forward. You, as critical
stakeholders, are critical to any progress we may hope to achieve in
this sector. I therefore look forward to working more closely with you
in this second tenure.
2. Before I go further, let me first thank you for your strong
support for us during our first term. I remember, with pride, your
impressive coverage of the 61st United Nations World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO) Commission for Africa (CAF) Meeting in June 2018;
and your largely positive reporting on the Sector. The successful
hosting of that Meeting could not have been possible without you. Of
course, you also gave good coverage to our activities on your various
platforms all through our first term. Thank you all.
3. Today, I want to review what we did in the sector in the past
four years and also set an agenda for the next four years. Looking
back these past four years, there is a misconception in certain
circles that we paid more attention to the Information sector than we
did to Culture and Tourism. This may appear so because the issues we
usually deal with in the Information sector are those that receive the
bigger play in the media. But I can tell you, with evidence, that we
achieved a lot in the Tourism and Culture Sector, or in the Creative
Industry generally.
4. Within six months of assuming office (in November 2015), we
decided to invite all stakeholders to a meeting, tagged the National
Summit on Culture and Tourism, in April 2016 in Abuja, with a view to
charting a new path for the nation’s Creative Industry. At the end of
the summit, we set up an Implementation Committee to carry out the
recommendations of the summit. The review of our Tourism Masterplan;
resuscitation of the Presidential Council on Tourism (PCT) and the
setting up a Task Force on the Creative Industry are some of the
outcomes of the summit.
5. We followed up that summit by organizing two other meetings to
fast-track the main objective of transforming the Creative Industry
which I have regularly described as Nigeria’s ‘new oil’. First, we
convened a Roundtable in Lagos that provided stakeholders the platform
to engage in business-focused discussions, with a view to initiating
and enabling private-sector-led growth and development of the
Industry. Then we held the Creative Industry Financing Conference to
articulate ways to source funding for the Creative Industry.
Gentlemen, both meetings paid off handsomely. After I led a team of
stakeholders to the Inspector-General of Police, the force set up
anti-piracy units in all its 36 formations and the FCT, leading to
many joint raids and seizure of pirated works, with the National Film
and Video Censors Board, We haven’t eradicated piracy, but we have
shown the political will to tackle the menace. Another fallout of the
meetings is the Creative Industry Financing Initiative (CIFI) of the
Central Bank of Nigeria to improve access to long-term, low-cost
financing for entrepreneurs and investors in the Creative Industry and
the Information Technology Sectors. Under this Initiative, you can get
a loan ranging from 3 million Naira to 500 million Naira for movie
production, movie distribution, fashion, music, etc. Remember,
gentlemen, that this happened after I also led a team of stakeholders
to meet with the CBN, upon the recommendation of the Creative Industry
Financing Conference. Same applies to the granting of the Pioneer
Status, by the Federal Government, to the Creative Industry Sector to
boost investment in the sector. It was one of the recommendations from
the Creative Industry Financing Conference.
6. We also decided to engage in partnerships to fast-track the
growth of the industry by signing MoUs with the Tony Elumelu
Foundation and the British Council. Under the latter, we trained over
100 Festival Managers in Lagos, Abuja and Accra. The next phase in the
implementation of the MoU is the mapping of the Creative Industry. Of
course you are aware that when we came on board, Nigeria was just a
member of the UNWTO in name. We decided to re-engage fully with the
organization, and our efforts paid off richly. First, we were awarded
the hosting right of the 61st UNWTO CAF Meeting, which I talked about
earlier, and Nigeria was elected as Vice President, Africa, at the
22nd General Assembly of the organization in China.
7. As part of efforts to attract attention and infrastructural
development to tourist sites, we visited a number of such sites across
the country, just as we also attended many festivals. First, we
showcased the Eko Atlantic City during the 2016 World Tourism Day and
the 2018 hosting of the 61st UNWTO CAF Meeting. Then we visited
tourists sites that include Owu Water Falls in Kwara; Rock Painting in
Birnin Kudu, Jigawa State; Durbar in Dutse, Jigawa; Calabar Carnival
in Cross River State; Puus Kaat Festival in Mangu, Plateau and Ijakadi
Festival in Kwara State. In the same vein, we made sure to attend the
premieres of many movies across the country in a show of support for
the efforts of our brilliant and hardworking producers. The premieres
we attended included Genevive Nnaji’s ‘Road To Yesterday’, Mo Abudu’s
‘Wedding Party’, Bolanle Austen-Peters’ ‘The Bling Lagosians’, ‘Hakunde’
by Nadine Ibrahim as well as ‘Oloibiri’. We travelled to London to support
‘Waka’ the musical, just as we supported ‘Saro’ the musical as well as
‘Fela and Kalakuta Queens’, all from the stable of Bolanle Austen-Pters.
8. Similarly, we gave strong government support for the hosting of the
Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) in Lagos, Nigeria, for four consecutive years.
The Ministry also packaged Nigeria’s first-ever attendance of
Edinburgh’s Military
Tattoo last August. Troupes from FCT, Osun, Kano and Katsina States joined
representatives of the military at the month-long event, where Nigeria
dazzled the
world.
9. Gentlemen, I have gone to this length to let the world know that
we did not neglect the Culture and Tourism Sector, as some have
insinuated. Rather, we engaged in a lot of activities to showcase the
sector and set it up as the nation’s new oil. As we begin a new
tenure, we promised to do even more for the sector, working with all
stakeholders. This sector, if well harnessed, is capable of creating
hundreds of thousands of jobs for our ever-creative and energetic
youths.
10. In this regard, please permit me to reel out, for the very first
time since assuming office last August, the highlights of our agenda
for the Culture and Tourism Sector for the next four years, in order
to build on the gains of the past four years. What you are about to
hear is by no means exhaustive, hence we are open to ideas on areas we
may have inadvertently left out.
We plan to:
a) – To set the necessary legal framework for the sector, we will
conclude and launch the National Policy on Culture as well as the
National Policy on Tourism.
b) – Finalize work on the Motion Picture Council of Nigeria (MOPICON)
Bill and submit it to the Federal Executive Council (FEC). The plan is
to create a proper regulatory environment for the sub-sector that has
put Nigeria’s name on the global map, thus attracting the much-needed
investment to the sector.
c) – Establish the Endowment Fund for The Arts to create a legal
framework for the financing of the sector.
d) – Make the National Summit for Culture and Tourism – which we first
held in April 2016 – a yearly affair, starting from the first quarter
of 2020
e) – Ensure a regularly meeting of the Presidential Council on Tourism
(PCT) to catalyze the growth of tourism. We plan at least three
meetings a year.
f) – Kick-start the implementation of the parts of the Tourism
Masterplan that constitute low-hanging fruits.
g) – Complete work on the establishment of Tourism Statistics and
Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), working with the UNWTO. We have
already signed an agreement with the UNWTO in this regard.
h) – Institute a unified National Celebration of the World Tourism
Day, instead of the current situation in which we have multiple
celebrations
i) – Hold a National Council on Culture and Tourism in May next year,
and then hold it yearly thereafter.
j) – Organize a Regional Summit on Culture and Tourism, starting
next year, with a view to working with other countries in the West
Africa sub-region to foster the development of the sector.
k) – Continue with our visits to tourist sites and attend as many
festivals as possible across the country.
l) – Finalize work on and launch our National Festival Calendar this
year. This is to attract more tourists, domestic and foreign, to these
events.
m) – Get more sites in Nigeria inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites
n) – Explore private sector branding of the nation’s Cultural Centres abroad
11. Everything we have listed here and many more are achievable, with
the support of stakeholders like you. That is why we have decided to
announce the agenda in front of you! We seek your continued
cooperation as we set forth on this journey, because we can’t do it
without you.
12. Once again, gentlemen, thank you for honouring our invitation.
And have a good afternoon.
