Rooting for cultural sustainability in the Garden City

It was theatre director Mr. Wole Oguntokun, who succinctly expressed the telling view that ‘A country without culture (expressed through a healthy artistic engagement through writing, theatre, film, visual arts expressions and festivals) has no democracy’. And indeed, a city that also lacks such artistic endavours to engage its writers, singers, actors, artists, dancers and the whole lot in one common performative platform is lacking in civic responsibility to the humanistic yearnings of its people.

Many Nigerian cities are caught in this sterile, barren web. This is particularly sad, as the country’s youthful energy in the creative economy – arts and culture – is widely known to be strong in spite of absence of platforms that ought to catapult such energy to enviable heights.

While some individuals and organisations have been at the forefront of providing scarce platforms needed to harness youths’ creative and artistic energy, a few states have managed to step in periodically. The result of such interventions has been phenomenal, given the financial muscles state governments wield to complement needed corporate support.

As Prof. Segun Ojewuyi of Illinois University, Carbon-Dale, U.S. has noted, governments’ backing of the arts serves as insurance and guarantee for corporations intending to support the arts. Without such government-backed support, Ojewuyi said, corporations might be unwilling to step in. This exemplifies the case with Nigeria; corporations are hesitant because of lack of state government patronage of the sector ought to provide.

As Ojewuyi put it, “In terms of structures, the United States pumps billions of dollars into the arts through the National Endowment for the Arts. Let me speak about the theatre, the major theatres, which we call Regional Theatres. They are also very commercial. In every sphere of the country, you have these regional theatres that are as big as the Broadway. They command huge budgets. The government subsidizes them through the endowment for the arts. What government gives is what we call ‘seed money.’ That seed money is so essential because it does two things. It makes those theatres accountable to those values that the government prefers. They also make them viable for the corporate world to support them.

“Without that, the theatres have no credibility. So the government gives them a backing. The thinking is, ‘We know that what you are doing has value and we put the government behind it.’ So, the corporate entities want to be part of it. Government in the U.S. has also ensured that if you give five dollars to these theatres, you get a certain amount of tax break, which is an incentive for the corporate world. So, the money corporations give is not wasted. The government acknowledges and rewards them for it.”

Over the years, Lagos, Cross River (Calabar Christmas Carnival) and Rivers States – and marginally, Akwa Ibom (with its Christmas Carol and 100o-member strong Choir) and Bayelsa State (played host to Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA) – have stood out in terms of providing platforms for the arts to thrive. In this democratic dispensation, governments in these states have shown commitment to a healthy artistic flowering. While there’s continuity in Lagos (Lagos Black Heritage Festival), Cross River and Akwa Ibom States, Rivers State is on the brink of slipping out of the radar of such endeavours.

Given the bitter transition politics that bedeviled Rivers State after the last elections, there are no indications that the cultural life Port Harcourt enjoyed in the past few years will continue. The problem of continuity in policies and programmes from one administration to another may well be all too evident. It is not mere transition from one administration to another; another political party has also assumed power – from All Progressives Congress (APC) to People’s Democratic Party (PDP) – with all the attendant bitterness of litigation that stretched to the Supreme Court.

Now that Wike’s mandate has been affirmed, what happens to the cultural programmes his predecessor initiated – Port Harcourt Book Festival (PHBF)? Will Rivers Sate Carnival (CARNIRIV) survive? Will there be continuity or will they be scrapped altogether to wipe out Amaechi’s legacy? Or will Wike establish his own programmes to bear his imprint? Port Harcourt Book Festival (PHBF) usually holds in October and CARNIRIV in December. Understandably, the two cultural programmes didn’t hold last year. Will Wike dust up the files of those two festivals and take a close look? Will his administration give back life to them?

The boss of Rainbow Book Club, Mrs. Koko Kalango, who organised PHBF on behalf of the Amaechi’s government, and who also helped secure the UNESCO Port Harcourt World Book Capital (PHWBC) 2014, said last October that the book feast could not hold because the state government, owner of the festival, did not mandate her organisation to do so. She stated that the state government, through the governor, usually asked her to hold the festival, as Rainbow Book Club was a mere facilitator for it. Now that the dust has settled, will Wike’s government ask Kalango’s Rainbow Book Club to organise the book feast this year? PHBF was a huge book and cultural tourism programme that brought writers and other cultural workers from far and near to Port Harcourt. It will be such a great loss to book lovers in Rivers State if it is sacrificed on the altar of politics. And what becomes the fate of the UNESCO Port Harcourt World Book Capital projects? Will Rainbow Book Club be empowered to continue servicing them for their educational benefits for Rivers’ people?

CARNIRIV is also a cultural programme that unites Rivers people in one big kaleidoscope of colours, costumes and fashion peculiar to Rivers people. Will Mr. Wike allow it to die, too? Will Mr. Wike be apathetic to things of culture and artistic creativity in his state or will he rewrite the rules and turn the once famous Garden City into a garden of culture and artistic creativity?

For University of Port Harcourt don and poet, Dr. Obari Gomba, it is lamentable that the book festival didn’t hold last year, just as its fate still hangs in the balance this year. According to him, “It’s a shame this feast didn’t hold and this is coming from the part of the government. Apart from infrastructural development, the book festival is the most progressive thing that has happened to this city, more than the CARNIRIV jamboree. It’s a shame; we must ask organisers why they couldn’t hold it last year, one year after its patron government left. In the years of abundance, they didn’t see the years of scarcity ahead. Holding programmes on the patronage of government is usually on a slippery ground; they should look at Lagos Book and Arts Festival (LABAF) that holds without government support. They should understand that flamboyance is not the same as content; there are simple ways of doing things without the flamboyance.”

He also noted that there appeared to be no legal framework regarding the establishment of the festival that could enable citizens hold the government responsible for the festival as a public interest project. Gomba argued, “It appears there is no legal framework to compel government to hold the festival as a public interest project through which we can hold government accountable. There’s this complexity. It would be comfortable where organisers have 100 per cent of power and ability to hold the festival. We cannot allow the city to be without a festival for too long. Mrs. Kalango should have had leverage on the past governor to reach out for support. She could have used Amaechi’s goodwill to ask companies and individuals to support her to carry on.”

Another Port Harcourt resident and writer, Mr. Uzo Nwamara, noted that inability to hold the festival last year was a big blow, and bigger blow still if it was stopped altogether. He noted, “Port Harcourt has been known for this festival. The world looks forward to coming to Port Harcourt. It’s a big blow for our reputation. It’s an experience people are now used to. We know that it’s just politics. My worry is that, will this administration buy into it? What is going on is politics; you don’t continue what your predecessor started. There’s a strained relationship between Amaechi and Wike.

“The truth is for government to look at its implications in the world of literature and culture. It was this festival that brought us UNESCO Port Harcourt World Book Capital. Whatever the issues, government shouldn’t allow it to die. Continuing it would portray Wike as a friendly governor to the arts”.

Mrs. Joyce Dabiels, a professed Master of Ceremony and trainer in the art of public speaking, argued that lack of policy on the festival is a problem, adding that many see the project as an Amaechi programme, rather than Rivers’. As she put it, “There is is no policy on these things (festivals). So, things hang on political decisions. Right now PHBF is considered an Amaechi thing, but it’s not. So, it’s Port Harcourt people that can sell these progrogrammes to Wike and, they don’t have to make them expensive.”

Daniels isn’t sure the exact impact of the book festival on the state though, as she asks, “How many Rivers’ writers and publishers have risen to prominence as a result? It was just to celebrate writers from outside. But literary festivals are not meant to throw up anyone really. For Wike to buy into it we have to sell it to him in a way that is measurable and seen to be beneficial to Rivers’ people. It doesn’t matter who organises it, but the state certainly cannot do without a festival of that nature.”

For Poet, photographer and culture expert, Mr. Lindsay Barrett, who was a regular feature at the festival, discontinuing the festival would be a disservice to the cultural soul of the state, adding, “It will be a very unfortunate decision if government doesn’t continue the festival. It’s a good tradition that should be continued.”

However, Rivers State’s Commissioner for Information, Dr. Austin Tam-George, in reacting to issues of Port Harcourt cultural life, said the Wike administration would not fail to meet the needs of the cultural life of the people. He, however, presented the lacuna the Amaechi government left behind that Wike has to come to terms with.

According to him, “There has been this misunderstanding that CARNIRIV started with the Rotimi Amaechi administration, but this is not correct. CARNIRIV has been part of the cultural fabric of Rivers State from 1988, to the best of my knowledge. It’s been a long running cultural festival. Last year, CARNIRIV didn’t hold because we had a very turbulent transition. Rivers State is the only state in Nigeria where not a single scrap of stipend was handed over to the successor. Rotimi Ameachi simply walked.

“Sometimes, we take the public hand-over notes as just ceremonies, but they are not. It is a form of accountability… As I speak, we still do not have hand over notes from any project, but some facts are beginning to come in as we sit in our offices. We do not have comprehensive record on the so-called World Bank Book Capital project. CARNIRIV, as I said, has been with us since the 1980s, as our cultural outfit. Last year, we had the Carol Service, which was the first in the history of the state.

“Some people suspected that the Carol Service was going to replace CARNIRIV, but the governor has been categorical in all his public statements that the Carol Service will continue as part of our ongoing tradition of giving gratitude to God. But the CARNIRIV would also continue because we have accepted it as part of our cultural calendar for the state. The fact that we didn’t hold it last year because of the turbulence in transition does not mean that we are abandoning it.

“What we want to do is to enrich the CARNIRIV project in such a way that it will reflect the fullest possible cultural artistry of the state. All the aspects of our cultural personality as a people will be showcased. We want to make it such that it would compete in the course of time with what happens in Brazil and the Caribbean. The focus is that it would become the cultural attraction to the state. We are not just doing it as a cultural activity, but as an integrated vision aimed at diversifying the economy towards cultural activity and tourism.”

Although Wike’s government would not abandon Port Harcourt Book Festival, Tam-George noted that it would be re-organised so it could serve the needs of the people better. As he put it, “It doesn’t mean it would be abandoned. I do not know if the name will remain the same, and I do not also know if we would make it as the previous administration made it. We do not have records of those events, but even when it was held under Amaechi’s administration, it was a project that was trapped in irony.

“I mean, you had a book festival at a time when arrears of salaries of teachers were not paid for months. I have been in the education sector for more than two decades and I can’t imagine a book activity taking place at a time when teachers have not been paid. Teachers constitute the backbone of any educational activity and when you have a demoralized set of teachers who have not been paid for more than eight months and you are holding a book festival, it is ironical. It is an oxymoron because you want to make sure that the teachers ought to come to the field as fully motivated professionals.

“What I think will happen is that, in this second year when the governor has made a public declaration that he is going to focus on education and health – not that he will abandon physical infrastructure, this second year we would give the appropriate attention to education and health. Something that has to do with books – encouraging the reading culture and debate – is a non-partisan issue and the governor has always said that ‘even if something was not initiated by my administration but I judge and determine that this is going to be of benefit to the generality of Rivers’ people, I will continue it.’

“The name might change, the people involved might also change, but the commitment to improving the reading culture of the people will continue.”