Tomorrow, Monday, August 21, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will swear in members of his cabinet. The eyes of arts and culture community will be on Hannatu Musawa, the first Minister of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy .
Despite challenges facing the economy, most especially, unemployment, many believe the creative industry has potential to tackle them.
The Culture, Creative Industry (CCI) has been described as the untapped goldmine of the Nigerian economy, and if well harnessed, can transform it.
In the last few years, the world witnessed a meteoric rise in creative input to economic activities.
Nigeria has equally gone through same transition, with a whole new generation of creators already empowered and given access to knowledge and human culture at the click of a mouse – and a concurrent box of tools for expression and self-learning.
Recall that the last administration, hinging on diversification policy, used different fora to persuade Nigerians on the need to jettison the non-oil sector and embrace agriculture or the creative industry owing to their capacity for massive job creation.
The culture and creative sectors include, architecture, audiovisual, books and publishing, music and performing arts.
It also comprises sectors whose activities are based on cultural values or other artistic individual or collective creative expressions and are defined in the legal basis of the creative industries programme.
Hannatu Musawa, who holds a degree in law from the University of Buckingham, UK and a master’s in Legal Aspects of Marine Affairs from the University of Cardiff, Wales, is expected to drive the process, as she assumes the position of a minister, in a ministry, which hitherto, was an arm of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation created by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as President in 1999.
Musawa is expected to take the creative industry to new heights.
Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) generate yearly revenues of $2.250 billion and global exports of over $250 billion.
Moreover, these sectors often make up around 10 per cent of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employ more people aged 15−29 than any other sector.
According to the national accounts for the first quarter of 2017, the entertainment industry grew by 12 per cent year-in-year. However, this is from a very low base as the sector accounts for just 0.3 per cent of total GDP.
It is believed that Nigeria can have a huge chunk of the $2.9 trillion creative industry market share through proper planning and development of local infrastructure, and tax rebate for companies investing in the sector.
This sector has somewhat solidified the gap left by other sectors in the country – to an extent – as the once neglected industry is now projected to reach a valuation of $15 billion by 2025.
The Beauty and Lifestyle industry currently employs 2.1 million people, and those numbers are projected to reach 2.9 million by 2025. The Entertainment industry currently employs 1.4 million people, and it is estimated that those numbers will reach 2.1 million by 2025.
Visual Arts is the third highest employer in the creative sector with 400,000 people under its employment, with figures expected to reach 1.2 million by 2025.
Tourism, Hospitality and Media were seen to employ the least in the sector with Tourism and Hospitality having 200,000 people under their employment, while Media had 100,000.
In terms of revenue and earnings, a breakdown of the $15 billion shows that Nigeria is to generate $7.7 billion in 2021, $9 billion in 2022, $10.7 billion in 2023, $12.6 billion by 2024 and $14.8 billion by 2025.
However, data provided by Statista shows that Nigeria’s creative sector performed better than the aforementioned projections.
The data shows that Motion Picture and Music Recording accounted for roughly $53.5 billion of Nigeria’s GDP in 2021.
Speaking at the book launch of former Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Steve Ayorinde, titled, 30: Three Decades of the New Nigerian Cinema, Tinubu, who was represented by Kehinde Bamigbetan, said the future of Nigeria depends on what happens to the sector.
Tinubu made it emphatic that his administration would provide the required enabling environment for arts, culture and tourism to thrive and develop through the massive upgrading of infrastructure and the provision of security.
He said his government would take the industry further by creating conditions necessary for its growth. The President also said he would support the sector and make it easier for it to create the desired technical quality such that the rich industry is positively reflected.
At a roundtable on the proposed Creative Industry Development Bill (CIDB) and its potential to transform the Nigerian creative economy, stakeholders noted that art, culture and creative economy are important for ensuring the continued development of societies.
They also noted that as a knowledge-intensive and based on individual creativity and talent, they generate considerable economic wealth.
In economic terms, they show above-average growth and create jobs – particularly for young people – while strengthening social cohesion.
Pointing to capacity building, professionalisation and talent development, they raised the need for the government to engage stakeholders as a way to create an enduring structure, which will in turn make regulation seamless.
They also called on the administration to rectify cultural policy so that things inside it could be operational and artists able to benefit from it. Currently, the country’s culture policy is outdated and its content needs o be fine-tuned to meet up with modern demands. It is unfortunate that so many years now there is a cause for review and it is yet to see the light of day.
“Each time I make enquiry, I am told it is ready; it’s just for final review and Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval before it can become effective. I hope that will be done, because when that policy comes to stay and it’s being implemented, the creative space will heave a huge sigh of relief,” said the General Manager, National Theatre, Prof. Sonny Enessi Ododo during a conversation with the media.
The Guardian gathered that there was an attempt at reviewing the culture policy in 2008, some 21 years after it was formulated, but the exercise came rather late.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) guidelines, a cultural policy shall be reviewed at least once in eight years. So, it was more than twice a belated exercise. Also, due to the restricted circulation of the text, it wasn’t addressed to the Nigerian people as sovereign owners.
This contrasted sharply with the case in 1988, when culture administrators mobilised universities, journalists, trade unionists, and civil society representatives, among others, to make their input to the implementation strategies.
Since the policy was formulated, gaping loopholes have continued to exist, which hinder the promotion of culture as documented in the policy. Nigeria is one of the African countries that took a cue from Ghana to formulate its national cultural policy at the insistence of UNESCO.
Speaking with The Guardian recently, the National Association of Nigerian Theatre Arts Practitioners (NANTAP) President, Israel Eboh, called on government to position the creative industry as an economic mainstay in Nigeria.
He also called on government to give Nigeria a truly creative industry, by providing the catalyst needed to drive a new, and alternative source of revenue for a viable and sustainable economic growth.
He said, “we are in an era in Nigeria where more attention needs to be given to the creative industry to maximise its potential.
Consequently, there is a need to focus on creating policies for these sectors that prioritise growth and encourage sustainability to engineer the transition from a creative industry to the development of a thriving creative economy.”
He also called the minister to ensure that the Federal Government continues to provide an enabling environment for the growth of the creative industry in the country.
Stakeholders in the visual art sector have also canvassed a befitting national edifice for the National Gallery of Art (NGA). But this time, with a caveat that provides a minority status for the Federal Government in ownership and operation of the national gallery, which should be funded on a Public-Private Partnership.
According to Omooba Yemisi Shyllon, Nigeria has the potential of attracting about six million visitors per annum to its national gallery of art, thereby, generating an income of $56 billion per annum.
He said: “It is not an exaggeration to state that the lack of a national gallery edifice is a key retardant to the development of modern and contemporary art in Nigeria. A national gallery edifice being a public space for the unique and important collection of artworks over time for the public benefit, tell some coherent stories in paintings, sculptures, and photographs, spanning decades and reflecting how artists in our nation have lived and responded to the myths of religion, history and contemporary events, covering human forms and our unique cultures.”
The founder, Shyllon Museum at Pan Atlantic University, Lagos, stressed, “we cannot but clamour for a befitting edifice for a permanent exhibition of Nigerian modern and contemporary art that would attract millions of people and many more online.”
Also, at a recent media forum in Abuja, Director General/CEO of National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), Prof. Abba Isa Tijani, said inadequate funding was the major problem facing the Commission, and prior to 2014, NCMM was receiving N60 million a month as overhead but with the coronavirus pandemic, it reduced to N7 million!
According to him, “now, we have written for another 160 monuments for the president’s approval and two world heritage sites. We are endowed with cultural heritage, we have so much that we don’t have enough outlets to display and enable our people to identify with them.”
He lamented there are objects in storage across the museums, but spaces to display them are lacking, adding that the galleries are not good and spacious enough to exhibit. “There is a need to upgrade our existing museum and build new ones to be able to display the richness of what we have,” he remarked.
Proper funding of the Commission will lead to the resuscitation of Nigeria’s museums, monuments and sites to compete with others around the world, create employment and as well boost the country’s economy.
Research and training are not funded, and museums are run like the civil service in this country. It should not operate that way if we are to make a headway. It is for this reason that fanatical interpretations of Western religions constitute a major harm to tourism development in Africa and Nigeria in particular.
Funding for the museums come solely from the Federal Government, a recurrent expenditure that is part of the country’s huge yearly civil service burden on the nation’s increasing infrastructure deficit.
For the arts journalist, Tony Okuyeme, “Government must ensure innovation, entrepreneurship and finance in the ministry. Entrepreneurship and innovation are important topics for the cultural and creative sectors and industries. Thus, she must encourage the enactment and implementation of policies that will develop the entrepreneurial and innovative potential of the ministry.”
The provision of an enabling environment will further attract private corporate sponsorship, which is key to the development of any industry in the world.
THEGUARDIAN
