Different aesthetics with Tope Babayemi
Twitter: afinjuadaba
When one looks at the Nigerian cultural firmament, it strikes one that things could be better organised. At the levels of practice and policy making and implementation, one gets the impression that there is a lot of room for improvement. Much has been said and debated on the practice, expectedly, because that is the cutting edge in the sector. That is where practitioners dream, produce and earn a living as professionals and it is where they fulfil their God-given right to be mirrors of society. At the level of the practice, in the midst of a wide variety of creative output of varying standards, you can still find innovation, you find investment at different levels and you find creativity that is genuine and world-class. However, at the level of policy making and implementation, there are big issues that need to be dealt with before Nigeria can realise the potential of building a buoyant and sustainable creative economy.
I have always stressed the point that the lack of quality leadership and direction, at least in the last two decades, has been the bane of the culture sector in Nigeria, and I would be very glad to be faulted. At times, you get the feeling that in Nigeria, it is those who have been given responsibility to govern and manage the arts that in their actions appear to be intent on killing creativity or compromising it.
The Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture has statutory responsibility for the management, promotion and development of the culture and creative sector. Below is the list of parastatals in the ministry through which government carries out her statutory obligations.
- Centre for Blacks and African Arts and Culture (CBAAC)
- National Commission for Museum and Monuments (NCMM)
- National Council for Arts And Culture (NCAC)
- National Gallery of Art (NGA)
- National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO)
- National Orientation Agency (NOA)
- Nigerian Institute for Hospitality and Tourism (NIHOTOUR)
- National Theatre/National Troupe of Nigeria (NT/NTN)
- Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC)
State governments carry out similar statutory obligations through ministries such as information and culture and at times home affairs and culture. Notice how culture is always the ‘junior partner’. The most forward looking states have dedicated ministries of culture and tourism. These include Oyo, and now Lagos. For many years, I was an ardent critic of the dysfunction in the management of culture in Lagos and with good reason. We had a Ministry of Home Affairs and Culture, and a Ministry of Tourism and Inter Governmental Relations. Hello!!! I was horrified and complained to everyone that cared to listen. But, now, Governor Ambode has truly come. Lagos State now has a dedicated Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture.
I would have preferred a ministry of arts, culture and tourism (M. ACT) in Lagos State, to loudly articulate the political will to wholesomely put culture at the core of development and to underpin the undeniable fact that culture drives tourism. But life is, “You win some, you lose some” The important thing is that the right structure is now in place that can help to position Lagos, deservedly, as the cultural capital of Nigeria, establish a vibrant creative economy that can contribute significantly to internally generated revenue (IGR) and make Lagos a destination of ‘first choice’ to potential internal and international tourists.
All states in the Federation have councils for arts and culture and in most cases; these councils are underfunded, under skilled and lacking in fundamental understanding of their role in governance and development. If you don’t believe me, ask your average civil servant in the arts to define culture. You invariably will get answers that point closely to tradition. This is why the defining image you get from these arts councils is what has been described as ‘airport art’, and a promotion of ‘grass skirts and war dances’. Meanwhile, a huge amount of creative energy from children, young adults, women, the elderly, and the physically challenged/impaired goes unnoticed, unacknowledged and ignored by the state.
Government must intervene in culture for us to make real sense of notions of “the creative industries and the creative economy” being bandied around at the moment. Government must take active steps to build internal capacity. This can be achieved in the following three ways.
- Build internal capacity to attract resources to the sector by finding and developing arguments that will convince the president, the cabinet and the treasury of the need for direct government intervention in the sector. This will have a positive knock-on effect on the private sector, development agencies, bi and multi lateral organisations and a range of other potential partners. I already asserted in this column last week that the N6.2 billion federal allocation in the 2016 budget is too paltry to be of any real significance. Most of it is going to go into unproductive salaries and wages.
- Desist from making “political appointments” into positions that require high levels of professional skill. Government should lead the crusade of promoting best practice at all levels in the sector.
- Adopt an aggressive policy of training and reorientation of her workforce with a view to boosting capability and productivity in the workplace. The need for development of human capital in government with regard to the culture sector has never been more critical because the situation we have now cannot just be allowed to continue. The current workforce is in the main, bloated and is cornered into the “vicious cycle of poverty” which dictates that low funds equal low productivity and low productivity equals low or no funds.
As such, many government workers in the sector are of the mindset that they are in service just to take their share of the national cake. Notions of “public good” and “public service” go out the window and “public trust” is routinely abused. When they talk IGR, they become charlatan, lose focus of their statutory obligations and start dabbling into areas of specialised skill in which they have no ideas. They become “businessmen in government”.
If we want the Change Begins with Me campaign to work and be believable, government as the biggest employer of labour in Nigeria must as a matter of urgency, embark on a process of honest internal reality check. I part with one of my favourite African adages, “the insect that is devouring the vegetable, lives in the vegetable”.
