‘ANA needs business to thrive’ – Chike Ofili

Chike Ofili is a 2019 aspirant for the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) presidency. He has led ANA on different levels and had aspired for its presidency in 2009. The author of ‘Our Unspoken Ties’ and ‘The Weight of Waiting,’ here, talks about how he will change ANA for the better, and more. Excerpts: When […]

Chike Ofili is a 2019 aspirant for the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) presidency. He has led ANA on different levels and had aspired for its presidency in 2009. The author of ‘Our Unspoken Ties’ and ‘The Weight of Waiting,’ here, talks about how he will change ANA for the better, and more. Excerpts:

When and why did you decide you wanted to become president of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA)?

I have been in ANA for about 30 years. The present president in 2001, was an ex-official when I was the National Publicity Secretary ANA South. Dr. Wale Okediran, Emman Shehu and I, ran for presidency at some point (in 2009), though it was a feeble attempt on my part, to make a point. I chose to run for the Association’s presidency because I wanted to come to solve its big problems. I am not vying for ANA presidency to get it and run conventions.

What are those big problems?

The biggest problem confronting ANA members is how they can make money from their writing. If what one does is of no profit, tendency is to either give it up, hang in there frustrated, or hope that salvation will come. I agree that there can be salvation. I have some marketing ideas, as a trained marketer and brand communication consultant, to run in ANA. I have a postgraduate degree in Marketing and also studied Public Relations as a Masters Degree, and practiced advertising with the biggest ad company in Nigeria, Insight Communication.

The literary art form needs business to thrive. I am between the two, arts and business, and so I am suited for the job, professionally. I intend to bring all this to bear in solving the aching migraine of marketing. However, before the marketing, there must be something to market. A product has to be produced or birthed before it is marketed. What we want to market is books by ANA members and authors. What kind books are we writing? We (ANA members) are self-publishing authors till date. That’s because the publishing industry is ghostly at best. So ghostly, that it’s no longer serving the purpose, particularly for creative writers, because creative writers are considered cost centres, takers and non-givers. It is same way newspaper houses consider the art desk. They are quick to yank off the art pages to put up advertisement. They don’t fund the desk as they should and they don’t accord it the right attitude and that affects the journalist on the beat, and how they in turn relate to the writers, the constituency they serve. That leads to a lot of conflict.

We have been producing creative works as self-publishers up to this point and it has taken us nowhere. We are saying that rather than being self-publishers, let us be collective self-publishers. Let the ANA platform, be used to produce us, and used to market us. When I am elected president, I will have the opportunity to embark on what I call ANA Publishing. It will seek to properly structure our publishing. In publishing, two major departments are relevant and critical, the editing and the marketing. Before the marketing, you have to do the editing. If these two are fixed, the rest like printing, graphics, can be outsourced.

I hope when I am made president to have regional editors because they will understand the culture of that region, as well as national editors, in what I term a committee of body of editors who will be pooled from the human resource base of ANA.

We are also going to have a body of evaluators. After the editing has been done, these evaluators will not only be readers or critics but can recommend and sift through materials. There is also the role of the body of legal defenders to fix the legal aspects of the publications. They are not only going to monitor the book from manuscript to the marketplace, they will ensure that the manuscript is not short-changed by any infringement. From the Ministry of Education, and its usual hanky-panky, to rogue publishers who don’t pay royalties, to rogue printers who use their plates for pirated publications, to bookshop owners and sellers who don’t make returns, to book buyers and book users, even at university level, who don’t make returns in any way and pay back for the use of books.

What about the marketing aspect?

When I am made president, I intend to first, set up a body of marketers and market monitors. Their job is to be able to find the markets for the books. We call them modern marketers because they have to have modern dimensions to their profession/operations. I intend to play more role in that, as I have additional experience to bring to bear. We are hoping to find these people in ANA, and where we can’t, we outsource, because we can’t find such people as much as we can find lawyers and other professions in the Association. How do we intend to market? We will set them up to monitor the modern market. One of the things we will do is first, set up not only a mere website but an e-commerce website, so huge that ANA will have a space for their pictures, profile, works and e-books will be uploaded. That way they can earn in foreign currency via the e-bookshop for e-purchases, and an e-library for any work used. For anyone who wants electronic copies of any particular work, that site caters to that need.

More importantly, I will personally design four to five magical marketing winners. One, to do a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with transporters, public transport companies with national network, and management with whom we would have informed conversation on how to build a literate society that reads and writes. So we need organisations that think ‘people’ and beyond just profit.

We also hope to do an MoU with technology logistics organisations to deliver books to booked buyers. There is also the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST).

How do you hope to get funding for all these?

That’s a good question, and my biggest migraine. I am thinking first of conventions, registrations, that can put some things in motion, if not take us far. We have some grants that are opaque, that I hope when I come into power by the vote of ANA members, to reconciliate what is made private and what is made secret. That way, we do an internal assessment of what we have and don’t have.

Beyond that, I have the word of a head of corporate affairs, a colleague in my profession, who has asked me how to come in. I told him I won’t need him at the pre-election, rather the post-election period, as it is where real funding is needed. He agreed. That’s secured.

Also, Chimamanda Adichie has promised on principle to be of great assistance, both in human development and international connection. I want to bring her into ANA, because ANA has not deemed it fit to bring in our best so far.

Other means of raising funding for the projects also include the hope that these ideas will be embraced once it is packaged in a proposal format. What I am considering is going to the mid-but-unnoticed companies rather than going to the big names and corporate players such as MTN, Airtel, Etisalat who are overwhelmed and saturated at the moment. Imagine meeting with a pen-making company or a pen selling company representing some big companies abroad in Nigeria. There are also the big literary funders abroad.

You have been an ANA leader on different levels and even aspired for its presidency in 2009. Do you believe ANA presidency should be rotated on a regional basis or should a competent candidate from any region always emerge as president?

That’s a good question.  For the past fifteen years ANA has been practicing rotational presidency from the period Abubakar Gimba, a northerner, became the president.

Is this in the constitution?

It is not constitutional but it is conventional, and you know conventions moderate the constitutions everywhere in the world. Everything is not written in black and white, but they are practices. Text-wise, it is constitutionally allowed. But in practice, we have observed this practice, and we have agreed with this without it being enshrined in the constitution. To illustrate, Wale Okediran was the secretary when Abubakar Gimba was president. Okediran at the time was operating from Ibadan, ANA, Oyo State Chapter. When Okediran became president, Denja Abdullahi from Abuja, in the north, was his secretary. Jerry Agada as the Association’s president, had Obumse as his secretary. When professor Remi Raji was the president, Dzukogi was his secretary, and now Denja Abdullahi, from the north, who has Ofonime Inyang as his secretary. So, you cannot deny this pattern. Why would you want to destabilise things? Are you saying the southerners who have waited this long, for which reason there are three candidates from that region vying for the presidency, are fools? I confronted the candidate concerned asking, “if it is not constitutional, isn’t it the practice? If you say it is not conventional practice, what about conscience?”

There is one northern aspirant this time around…

Ahmed Maiwada is the sole northern candidate this year, because a northerner is not expected to participate by practice, alongside three southern candidates, myself, Camillus Uka, and Ofonime Inyang. To better understand the situation and its consequences, I’ll illustrate. When PDP said it wanted to do rotational presidency, and that power will move to the south, Abubakar Rimi refused even when it had been agreed on. He was allowed to run but we all know the story.  Parties, in the PDP and APC, are aware of these sensitivities and are addressing it. In 2023, if the north does not shift power to the south, it is going to cause problem in Nigeria.

ANA Convention is supposed to be the biggest gathering of writers and the most organized literary event considering its role as a national body. How do you intend to ensure it is better organised and compelling for creatives within and beyond Nigeria?

The recent Lagos convention should draw sympathy, but it is not to be tolerated. ANA has been drab. I think everything rises and falls on the leader. The orientation and social formations of a leader, all come to play in leadership. ANA leadership has been largely from the academia. One would expect these people are familiar with and have perfected conferencing, based on the nature of their profession which often requires seminars, conferences, workshops and conventions. ANA has a long history of professors as presidents. However, we are yet to see how that has helped the process. Perhaps the challenge of finance has held up success in the area. Professor Remi Raji during his administration attempted to fix it using his practice, it might not have been a fully satisfactory application but it was a little leap away from what has become the norm.

Now, ANA’s biggest problem is the onslaught of non-writers parading as writers in ANA, who want to drive the process. Therefore, there is the practice of people who want to host conventions because they have access to government. At the end of the day, oftentimes, it isn’t about ANA. The convention becomes an excuse to do other things. Thus, attending to the needs of the people becomes secondary.

Also, the National Executive has not been able to properly recognise its role with the Local Organising Committees (LOC) of the Association’s local chapters. The national should begin to play a more active role, and take a proper percentage share in the entire process, and not play supervisory role for what it didn’t seek funds for.

The Lagos convention which witnessed a major disruption was the result of a problem between a godfather and a godson. Unlike other conventions, ANA Lagos did not have the benefit of the state coming to assist as is always the practice. Owing to that, government shutdown because of what happened to governor Akinwunmi Ambode which affected his morale and thus ANA. Lagos did its most to get around with lack of funds, and still host a convention.

You are presently working on a post-humous children’s publication by the late Chief Onuora Nzekwu, the author of ‘Eze Goes To School.’ Why did you embark on this project, and what is the update?

This was a man I came in contact with when I was the Chairman of ANA Lagos. I had assumed he was dead. But one day, Emmanuel Anyaegbunam, came to our meeting to ask if we were aware that the author of ‘Eze Goes to School’ was alive and living in Surulere, Lagos State. We were surprised. This was the script he gave me to read, and facilitate the process. We were able to get that published, which is known as ‘Troubled Dust.’ It was longlisted for the NLNG Prize for Literature.

Sometime later, he gave me another manuscript, which means he had continued to write since he had stopped publishing. He was publishing when it hadn’t turned into the self-publishing practice we see today. I have that manuscript and we are tidying it up for publication.