Inuwa Bwala
3 August 2008
analysis
Because of her many conflicts and the economic deprivations of her people, they call her the Dark Continent but the world also acknowledges Africa as a land of awesome beauty, very suitable for tourism and investment.
Besides music and dance, with which we conquered the entertainment world, arts and crafts remain the twin African cultural attributes, for which Nigeria has been acknowledged as the hub. At every occasion, Africans tend to want to showcase their rich cultures, arts and crafts. To this end, Nigeria has been the cynosure of global attention on culture, arts or crafts.
It is a truism that many ancient African art works today adorn the shelves of the museums of many non-African societies, even as symbols of national pride to such nations. Africans have made several attempts to trace the origins of many art works and crafts stolen from our shores since the colonial days to the continent by recapturing their aesthetics and their essence. Very often, African countries have tried to collectively celebrate their cultural heritage, their arts and their values and Nigeria has always played a pivotal role in that direction. No doubt too, the country gets recognised for the role she plays in reviving cultural endowments. But the country has never been so enthusiastic in staging cultural festivals or exhibitions as it has done in the past five years.
Even with a depleted cultural and artistic reserves following years of artistic migration and theft of works, Africa still prides itself as being the richest continent in arts and cultures. The residuals of African arts and crafts are still globally regarded as the best. It was in an attempt to preserve the residuals of our crafts and revive our culture that the National Council for Arts and Culture was established in Nigeria. In recent times, the council has spearheaded many initiatives targeted at repositioning Africa in the quest for socio economic and cultural revival.
One of the successful events staged under the new democratic order is the annual cultural festival, tagged National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFEST). It gives one a sense of pride to state that NAFEST has brought Nigeria's culture to life, and has placed the country in global competitiveness. Any time I watch film clips from NAFEST, I always feel nostalgic about certain cultural patterns that were hitherto hidden from others, except those from the immediate locality or the origins of such cultures. Every year, Nigerians yearn for NAFEST because of the tremendous expositions it brings about their cultures.
Against the background of the successes of NAFEST, I became curious when I learnt of the plans to stage the First African Arts and Culture Expo (AFAC) in Nigeria. Yet another brain child of the National Council for Arts and Culture, AFAC will tend to bring to global attention many hidden African arts and crafts.
The question on my mind has been whether we still have the capacity to make a success of AFAC as was the case with NAFEST or even FESTAC in 1977. This poser was put across to the Executive Director of the National Council for Arts and Culture, Mr Mwajim Maidugu Malgwi. And I was pleased when he said AFAC EXPO 2008 would in all ramifications surpass all other festivals before it. To him, African consciousness about the essence of arts and crafts as instruments of identity and as lure for investment had doubled over the years and people were more enthusiastic to participate.
Malgwi explained to me that, before now, cultural festivals were viewed from a unidirectional perspective as mere jamborees. Today, however, he said, the National Council for Arts and Culture had elevated the cultural expo to the level of not only showcasing African music, or the display of African dance steps, but also the promotion of African cuisine, and African textiles. Even beyond these, AFAC was intended to serve as a forum for cross artistic ventilation and an investment forum. The introduction of competitive events, he explained, was targeted towards stimulating creative ingenuity and exposing the idiosyncrasies of each artistic work in Africa. To this end, diverse artistic exposures shall be compared to give a sense of originality and ingenuity.
According to the chief Executive of the culture and arts agency, the First African Arts and Culture Expo is the biggest arts and crafts expo in the world with unique potentials to explore, grow, develop, promote market and generally leverage Africa's rich arts and crafts industry, which has the promises of complementing other revenues like oil in Nigeria. The event, which comes up between the 14th and 23rd of August in Abuja, he stressed, would showcase over five thousand crafts entrepreneurs from across Africa, even as over one million visitors were being expected at the various pavilions during the event. Other things expected to be on display included African garments, household utensils, jewelleries, brass and metal designs, interior decors, ceramics and pottery, and African cuisines alongside African music and dances.
Very importantly, states and local governments in Nigeria will have the opportunity to expose their rich local arts works and crafts, some of which may gain international recognition. The planned expo will be an added stimulus to the country's crusade for tourism revolution in Nigeria. The minister of Culture and Tourism, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode, has never hidden his crave for a robust Nigerian tourism industry and AFAC seems to be the right avenue for him to propagate this. Prince Kayode had at a recent meeting said Nigeria would soon overtake many countries on the continent if the tourism potentials of the country were properly harnessed.
With the theme, "Stimulating Economic Growth Potentials of the Arts and Crafts Sector", AFAC promises to give Nigerians and the world 10 days of cultural entertainment, African crafts, cuisine, fashion and heritage. The type of activities lined up will furthermore open up windows of inter cultural linkages, and create avenues for discussing investment opportunities in the tourism sector. More importantly, Africa will once more have the opportunity to discuss her common heritage, common hopes, common problems and possibly common solutions to the problems.
When Nigeria stands still for African arts and crafts on 14th August, one of the many questions the world will still ask is how African cultures, arts and crafts hope to survive in the face of invading Western values and mannerism. Mr Maidugu gave a ray of hope for Africa when he intoned that the originality, appeal, and ingenuity of African arts and crafts make it impossible for its total colonisation. What AFAC will strive to drive home is the fact that arts and crafts are part and parcel of African life, and the world has an opportunity to partner Africans in aesthetic exploration.
Inuwa Bwala is a journalist and contributed this piece from Abuja
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