Ake: Where artists, authors, spoke the ‘female language’
This festival always has a loud theme, and this year’s, ‘This f-word’, sounded louder and feminist. With guests from across the world, the panel discussions, music, films, art and books, promised to leave participants breathless, long after. I had always wanted to attend the Ake Arts and Book Festival in Abeokuta, Ogun State, so I […]
This festival always has a loud theme, and this year’s, ‘This f-word’, sounded louder and feminist. With guests from across the world, the panel discussions, music, films, art and books, promised to leave participants breathless, long after.
I had always wanted to attend the Ake Arts and Book Festival in Abeokuta, Ogun State, so I was excited when the 2017 festival began on November 14, themed ‘This f-word’. The first physical contact I made with anything related to the occasion was on my ride to Abeokuta from Lagos, soon after my flight touchdown from Abuja. It was the event program, Moses, our Lagos-Abeokuta rendezvous had on the dashboard of his vehicle, and since I arrived on a Wednesday, I was eager to catch up on what I had missed and what the following days had to offer. I wasn’t disappointed.
Workshop, concert
The event began with a fiction writing workshop by award-winning author, Nnedi Okorafor, with focus on fantasy, science fiction, and comics. Okorafor is the author of novels, such as ‘Who Fears Death’, ‘What Sunny Saw in the Flames’, ‘Binti’ (a novella that won the Nommo Award for Best Speculative Novella by an African during the course of the festival) and several more.
A major feature I caught up with, the evening of my arrival, was an all-female performers concert. The founder of the festival, Lola Shoneyin (author of ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives) pointed this out herself when she said it flowed with the year’s theme.
Anyway, the crowd was stirred almost to their limits when singers like Aramide, Celeste, Joyce Olong, and Adunni Nefretiti owned the lit stage, and the night. With Celeste and Aramide, it was a mixture of guitar strings and songs that told stories, Olong’s was the keyboard and sweet melodies that got the crowd screaming.
It was different when the band of six women, Adunni Nefretiti took the stage. People practically leaped to their seats to dance. With a mix of mainly Yoruba music and flavours from other Nigerian and African languages, and then European and Asian languages, this group made the night one to remember.
When veteran singer, Salawa Abeni came on stage, backed by men with drums, the stirring in the crowd, however, reached its peak. There was hardly anyone standing anymore and the stage was occupied by dancers from the audience. When she switched to Hausa, Hadiza El-Rufai, wife of Kaduna State governor, and her companions, dominated the stage.
The opening
I learned it’s unusual to have the opening ceremony on the festival’s third day, but this was the case this time. Scheduled to begin by 9:20am, it started hours later due to an accident incident, Shoneyin explained, that delayed guests commuting to the venue.
Between the welcome address by the Director of Ake Festival, Shoneyin, and goodwill messages, a number of things stood out. The Governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, represented by his deputy, ‘Mrs. Yetunde Onanuga, stressed that women need to have a level-playing field to thrive in the arts as well as other areas. Also, the 2017 Ake Review was officially unveiled and presented to its cover personality, veteran Ghanaian author, Ama Ata Aidoo.
Awards were given to some guests, including Okorafor, for ‘Binti’ and an award to Hadiza El-Rufai by Vlisco, a textile company, for her work in spurring creative writing, particularly as a woman in government.
Panel discussions, book chats
Being present at every panel discussion and book chat is my top priority and favourite part of any art and book festival, and the 2017 Ake Festival was no different. The problem was, two events almost always took place at the same time and so I sometimes needed to shuffle from one to the other, or, enjoying one, simply forgot about the other. This was how I felt when Pumla Gqola, Laure Beaufils, Jude Kelly, and Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi spoke about rape in a discourse titled ‘Silence the Silence: How We Talk About Rape in Africa’.
Anchored by Timehin Adegbeye, the panelists talked about how it has become a global problem not to take women seriously when they say no, and the need for men to learn to listen.
When Ayobami Adebayo (author of ‘Stay With Me’) and Yvonne Owuour (from Kenya and author of ‘Dust’) occupied hot seats, the atmosphere was equally charged. Moderated by Dami Ajayi (author of the recently released poetry collection, ‘A Woman’s Body is a Country’), they talked about what it was like dealing with acclaim that came with their debut novels. Interestingly, their responses were somewhat similar.
“I step away from it,” Adebayo said. “There were a lot of reviews. At a point, I stopped reading them because I’m working on my second book.”
“I simply enjoy it, and after a while, stop believing it and get on with the next story,” Owuour said.
For the discussion on what’s new in African feminism moderated by Hannah Azieb Pool, panelists included Mona Eltahawy (Egyptian author and activist), Iheoma Obibi (a feminist writer and human rights activist), and Charmaine Pereira (writer and feminist scholar in Abuja).
Pereira pointed out that women “can and should be intellectual producers.” She also dwelled on the subject of patriarchy and the need to fight it, which Eltahawy buttressed, stressing that violence against women is economic and emotional.
“Patriarchy is working against women,” Obibi said, adding that some women suppressed sexual assaults.
Discourse also revolved around ‘Financing the Creative Arts’, ‘Feminism Across Borders’, the question of ‘What Africans are Reading’, book chats with Nnedi Okorafor, Diane Awerbuck, and much more.
A particularly engaging discussion focused on politics, where lawyer and politician, Ayisha Osori (author of ‘Love Does Not Win Elections’) and feminist activist and writer, Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi talked about the need for women in political spaces.
“Everything is hidden in government and I wanted to open that up in my book,” Osori said, and about corruption Adeleye-Fayemi pointed out that, “whether male or female, it’s zero tolerance for corruption in government.”
Osori added that although she wanted women in positions of power just as their male counterparts, she would rather vote for a worthy man who will defend her rights than a corrupt woman.
Short films
Five films were featured during the Ake Arts and Book Festival. These included ‘Stand Down Soldier’, ‘Witches of Gambaga’ and three short ones; ‘Through Her Eyes’, ‘Bariga Sugar’, and ‘Face of Defiance.’
Jeryl Prescott Sales’ ‘Stand Down Soldier’, a fiction work, was selected as the Festival Film of 2017. It tells the story of Sergeant Stacy Armstrong, who returns home from three deployments suffering from Postromantic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Soon after her return, she and her husband realise their 20-year marriage is about to be another casualty of war. Infidelity, addiction, and a tragic accident test the couple’s commitment.
This film explores some of the issues many returning soldiers confront in their civil life, including mental health issues, loneliness and drug addiction. These were some of the answers, filmmaker Sales, interviewed by Kobina Graham, gave on the festival’s hot seat.
The films featured, all focused on women, were touching and moved the audience in the dark hall. ‘Women of Gambaga’ is a documentary about how women in a Ghanaian village are branded as witches and have to flee to another where they live for years under the care of a chief they answer to.
‘Through Her Eyes’ by filmmaker Nadine Ibrahim showed how minors are forced to be suicide bombers by the terrorist group, Boko Haram. The journey of the little girl in this film is slow and torturous and captures how children are mere victims.
Speaking about the movie, Ibrahim explained that it was difficult getting a child who would act the role because the character is a suicide bomber.
Filmmaker Leyla Hussein’s ‘Face of Defiance’ was a documentary about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). She pointed out that it was not only an African problem, but happens in Europe and other parts of the world. “Unlike men, women are cut for a different reason,” she said. “They are cut to control their sexuality.”
Several eyes must have gotten misty when the boy in Ifeoma Chukwuogu’s film, ‘Bariga Sugar’, died. It’s a story where two kids, a girl and a boy, share a unique friendship, while their parents struggle to survive in a brothel.
Chukwuogu said she wanted to show that prostitutes are human, and through the children, how friendship could be found in a bleak environment.
Visits and tours
Students in Ogun State weren’t left out of the events. There were visits to schools where Ake Festival guests spoke inspiring words to them. Also, tours were made to Olumo Rock and Alake’s Palace.
More book chats and panel discussions, and the festival ended with Aidoo’s interview. Born in Ghana, she began to write seriously at the University of Ghana. She first won recognition with a her play, ‘The Dilemma of a Ghost’ in 1965, in which a Ghanaian student brings his African American wife home.
Aidoo, who is a poet, playwright and academic has quite a number of books to her name, including: ‘Our Sister Killjoy: or Reflections from a Black-eyed Squint, (1977), ‘Someone Talking to Sometime, (a poetry collection, 1986), ‘The Eagle and the Chickens and Other Stories’, (for children, 1986), ‘Birds and Other Poems’ (1987), ‘An Angry Letter in January’, (poems, 1992), ‘Changes: a Love Story’ (novel, 1993), ‘No Sweetness Here’ (Short Stories, 1995) ‘The Girl Who Can and Other Stories’, 1997), and ‘Diplomatic Pounds & Other Stories’ (2012).