From dreamland to promised land:
making of Nigeria’s first writers’ village
Henry Akubuiro
The Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village at
Mpampe, Abuja, reminds one of the biblical Promised Land offeredß to Abraham
and his Descendants. The promise was first made to Abraham, confirmed to his
son, Isaac,ß and then to his son, Jacob. It was a territory from the River of
Egypt to the Euphrates River, a land of milk and honey.
But it wasn’t until Moses led the
Exodus out of Egypt that a glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon. Even at
that, the land had been controlled by different empires, and it took Moses’
successor, Joshua, scores of years to get to the fabled destination.
Recently, the ANA President, Mallam
Denja Abdullahi, led a team of journalists and stakeholders on a media tour of
36.9-hectare Mamma Vatsa Writers’ Village, Mpampe, Abuja. Located on Mpampe
hill, a 10-minute drive from the upscale Maitama area in the FCT, it was a
sight to behold as a number of buildings doted the landscape in the middle of
nowhere.
Like the biblical Promised Land, the
ANA land has diminished over the years. In 1985, when the then Minister of FCT,
Major General Mamman Vatsa, a poet himself, commissioned the land in the presence
of the founding fathers of the association, it was spread across 61.20
hectares.
No thanks to land grabbers and other
allocations, the land withered to the present 36.9 hectares. But, then, it took
a series of legal battles to even salvage what it remained at the moment.
Abdullahi told newsmen, “Since that
period of Vatsa’s leap of faith till now, a lot has happened to the writers’
body and the land on which we are standing on today. It has been a tale of
flight away from here, hotly pursued by maximum rulers; it has been a story of
lack of capacity, failed promises, betrayals, revocation, re-allocation,
long-drawn litigations and brazen trespasses.”
After surviving a long-drawn four
years court battle over the land with the former developer (Home Securities
Limited), the association, said ANA President, on the 24th of January, 2013,
did a ground breaking ceremony and a turning of the sod, under the auspices of
the Remi Raji-led ANA and the current developer, KMVL, to signify its
determination to get things going.
When the Abdullahi-led ANA Executive
Council took over in November 2015, the Abdullahi-led National Executive
Council, quickly constituted a land development committee. The activities of
the committee culminated in the Foundation Laying Ceremony on Friday May 26,
2017, which announced the period of actual development on the vision of Vatsa,
Chinua Achebe, who founded the association, and a legion of Nigerian writers.
It wasn’t until August 2017 that
actual development took off with a view to realising the projects as laid out
in the MOU between ANA and KMVL entered into in 2013. The agreement was for the
developer to develop for the association, on a 5-hectare land, a national
headquarters complex, a 50 Room Hotel, residency chalets, 500-Seater Auditorium
and a conference centre.
The project will also house
E-libraries, ANA State Offices Complex, archives and depositories and many
other facilities befitting a writers’ resort. Developments on the five hectares
are already at an advanced stage, with multiple story buildings springing up.
The chalets, which will serve as residencies for writers, will house at least
five writers at a time in different apartments. Blocks will also be named after
legendary Nigerian writers, said the association’s president.
The idea behind the hotel blocks was
to generate money to run the association. Until now, ANA was being run with
handouts from patrons of arts and establishments sympathetic to the cause of
writers.
There was an enthusiastic atmosphere
as the ANA President, Abdullahi, conducted newsmen and ANA members round the
facilities being developed. Senator Shehu Sani, a writer, told The Sun Literary
Review, “This is a great initiative by ANA. Seeing is believing. This is a
pride of place befitting an association like ANA.”
Abdullahi shed more light on the
ongoing development, “Our strategic plan for 2017-2022, which this
administration developed in 2016 with buying-in from ANA stakeholders, has the
development of this land as a priority project and appropriately phased.”
That wasn’t all, his administration
also produced a documentary film entitled Dancing Mask: The ANA Story in
which the ANA land and its development was given a prominent feature. Also,
another 15 minutes film focusing mainly on the land and its initial
developments of 2017 was shot and with the main documentary were hosted on ANA
website www.ana-nigeria.com for public viewing.
No doubt, Abdullahi wanted
everything about the ANA land to be documented to tell a moment in history when
fantasy morphed into the fringes of reality. In order to keep an eye on
progress made on the land and fast-track possible developments, the National
Executive Council, from the donations received at the foundation laying
ceremony in May, 2017, from some friends of ANA who attended the event, gave
out some money to the developer for the building of a temporary national
secretariat for the association to enable it move the national headquarter from
Lagos to Abuja.
The National Secretariat of ANA has
since been moved from the National Theatre Complex Iganmu, Lagos, to the
building in March, 2018. However, it was the dream of the present National
Executive Council of ANA to complete this project in its entirety, at least, the
first phase or commission some structures would have been full functioning.
“It was a commissioning ceremony we
had thought we would do before we quit office in November, 2019. Based on this
and, in agreement with the developer, we set out well thought-out developmental
timelines in black and white, which the vagaries of climate, Abuja land
development bureaucracy, engineering hitches and general harsh economic
environment have made impossible to meet.
“However, our unwavering commitment
to see this development to its end has taken us this far which we have deemed
necessary to showcase to the ANA public and to our friends in the media,” said
ANA President.
He commended both successive ANA
leadership the association’s legal team for contributing in no small measure to
the successes recorded in securing the land and making the writers’ village a
reality.
“The struggle since 1985 has been a
collective one, and so should it remain if we are to one day gather here soon
to commission in a grand manner this on-going project and move into the next
phase of an association with properties that will generate the much needed
income to power literary developments in our land,” said Abdullahi.
Seeing the massive structures on
ground, one cannot but agree with Abdullahi that “we have stepped into the
fringes of the Promised Land”. What’ more, “The period of being romantic about
a land bequeathed to us by a benevolent poet-soldier is long over; we are in an
age where a hard-nosed business option has to be continually taken to fully
build the land and realise the vision behind the giving.”
From Professors Femi Osofisan (third
president of the association) to Jerry Agada (ninth president of the
association), it was a show of gratitudes to the present leadership of the
association for persevering against odds to make the dream of a writers’
village a reality. Similarly, Doc. Wale Okediran and Professor Idris Amali
expressed the same sentiments.
….Plans big for 2019 ANA Convention
in Enugu
Enugu, the coal City, is set to host
this year’s ANA Convention holding between October 31 and November 3, 2019,
with the theme “Literature, Nationalism and the Poetics of Integration.”
The Convention, which is tagged “ANA
Homecoming 2019”, is the first of its kind in the Coal City since the first
ever convention took place in the university town of Nsukka in 1981 when the
association was established by the patriarch of Modern African Literature,
Chinua Achebe, and others.
Earlier in June 2019, after Enugu
State Chapter of ANA was granted the hosting right after a competitive
bidding process with the Edo State Chapter, members of the National EXCO of
ANA, including the President, Mallam Denja Abdullahi and the Vice-President,
Camillus Uka, visited Enugu to inaugurate the Local Organising Committee (LOC)
headed by Hon. Ndubuisi Ene.
The Chairman of ANA Enugu State
Chapter, Zulu Ofoelue, in a press conference, on Monday on October 14, 2019,
stated that the convention had the backing of the state governor, Ifeanyi
Ugwuanyi (Gburugburu), as Chief Host, who would also declare the convention
open.
Said Ofoelue, “Over 400 of
Nigerian’s best and foremost creative writers, literary critics, journalists,
members of the academia and other stake holders have registered to attend the
convention in Enugu State.”
While Professor E.E. Sule of the IBB
University, Lapai, Niger State, will serve as the Keynote Speaker, the Special
Guest to the Convention will be the US-based scholar, Professor Ernest
Emenyonu, a Trustee of ANA and Editor, African Literature Today.
Three new fellows will be inducted
by the association at the opening ceremony, including Professors Zaynab Alkali,
J.O.J Nwachukwu-Agbada and Remi Raji, all distinguished writers and scholars
and members of the association. The Ekiti State Governor, Dr. John Kayode
Fayemi, will also to be conferred a patron of the association at that same
opening ceremony.
Activities for the national
convention are scheduled as follows: Thursday. 31st October, 2019 –Arrivals,
Welcome Cocktails (An evening of Palm-wine, Poetry, Folklores & Festival of
Life) by 8 pm at Sunshine Hotel and Guest House, Plot 8/9 Ebe Ano Estate, New
Haven Junction, Enugu.
After the Grand Opening Ceremony at
9 am on Friday, November 1, 2019, at the International Conference Centre,
Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Independence Layout, Enugu, there
will be a tour round Enugu for sightseeing 2 pm – 5 pm. Later in the evening,
at 7 pm, the Convention Play/Cultural Night will hold at the International
Conference Centre, IMT, Enugu, featuring Death and the King’s Grey Hair by
Denja Abdullahi.
The AGM/Business Meeting of the
association will kick start activities lined up for the convention on Saturday,
from 10 am to 2 pm, at the International Conference Centre, IMT, Enugu. The
annual convention will come to a climax later in the evening with the award of
prizes and a dinner night, from 7 pm – 10 pm, at Justice Umezuluike Auditorium,
JC Ugwu State Court Complex (by WAEC Junction), Independence Layout, Enugu.
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