China has open attitude to Nigeria – Cultural Counsellor

What is the motive behind the setting up of the China Cultural Centre in Nigeria?I think there are several factors led to the establishment of the China Cultural Centre in Nigeria but I think it is because of the close relationship between our two countries. The friendship has developed very fast especially in recent years. […]

What is the motive behind the setting up of the China Cultural Centre in Nigeria?
I think there are several factors led to the establishment of the China Cultural Centre in Nigeria but I think it is because of the close relationship between our two countries. The friendship has developed very fast especially in recent years. In the political level, we can see that top leaders of our two countries visit each other, so in the political area, trust has been built and then in terms of trade or the economy, the trade volume between Nigeria and China reached $10.3 billion and also in terms of cultural cooperation, we enjoy prime moments. Just last year, Nigeria’s minister of Culture and Tourism, Chief Edem Duke visited China three times and this is quite rare. At the same time people-to- people communication have been going on and you can see that we have built up a kind of cooperation model between the local people and the central government. Also last year, Nanjing a city in China that has a kind of cooperation with Nigeria had three delegations visiting Nigeria and the Vice Minister Ding Wei of China Cultural ministry was in the country. China tries to be involved in cultural activity in Nigeria. For example, the Chinese delegation had taken part in the Abuja Carnival twice and for the African Expo, a China delegation was here. We like to take part in cultural events and we try to keep cultural communication between both countries.
What sorts of activities does the China Cultural Centre undertake in Nigeria?
We know that Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and China has the largest population in the world, so we have to take the opportunity to further our cooperation and communication in the area of culture. In 2011, both sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) considering establishing cultural centres in both countries and after that the agreement was formally signed and then Nigeria first set-up its cultural centre in China and then in September, 2013 China set up its own centre in Nigeria. Accordingly, the centres were established based on the principles of cooperation, equality and mutual trust. The China cultural centre in Nigeria is the 14th China cultural centre in the world, the  4th in Africa  and second in sub-Sahara Africa with the other one in Benin Republic. We are proud of the centre here because we built it very fast and within three months it was completed. It was challenging.
In terms of its functions, it is centre of communication between our peoples and government. It is a centre for people to get information about China. If people want to know about Chinese culture, it is the place they should go and it should be a place where people can get trained. If they want to do business with Chinese people this is the place they can learn to speak a little Chinese.
Apart from the government-to-government level of relationship with which other organization is the cultural centre partnering with?
After we established the China cultural centre, we took an open attitude to the Nigerian society. Just like the museums, it is always open. Like we say “we open the door, never closes it.”  The centre has been running for about four months and within this period, we have held more than 30 events including exhibitions, diplomatic events, showed movies and held some lectures on Chinese culture.  Also, the artistic troop here in Abuja wants to take advantage of the centre to do their rehearsals. The Basic Education Resource Centre wants to use the centre to do some training. The library is also useful as some scholars make use of it for research and know more about China. Generally, the cultural centre is very attractive and warmly welcomed in Nigeria.
You mentioned that Nigeria has a cultural centre in China. What do the Chinese people want to learn or know about Nigeria in your country?
We established the cultural centres following some principles of equality and mutual benefits. Also, we have to take note of the audience needs. We try to appeal to their interest since both countries are ancient civilizations. China has a history of more than 5000 years and Nigeria has a history of more than 2000 years and they enjoy a cultural diversity and a diverse world. Based on the principle of mutual benefit and equality, for the Nigeria cultural centre in China, the Chinese people are eager to know something about this “Mysterious” country in West Africa called Nigeria, because they know little about the country.
Of course, the Nigeria Cultural Week was held in China twice in 2012 and 2013. In the 2012 edition, the minister of Culture, Chief Edem Duke led a delegation of more than 80 people and in 2013 led another delegation of more 140 people including delegates from the tourism sector, artistes and exhibitors. The first time the cultural week was held in Beijing, the capital city and the second time it was held in Nanjing which took place when Nanjing was holding the International Arts Festival. We also have artistes from Calabar, Kano and Kaduna as part of the delegation to Nanjing. The most appealing part to the Chinese audience is the Nigerian dance.
China has a very huge movies industry like Nigeria. Are both countries working on how to cooperate in the sector?
We know that Nigeria have the third largest movies industry in the world after Hollywood in the US and Bollywood in India. Ofcourse the China movie industry is growing very fast in recent years. As far as I could remember, I think in 2008, the movie industry got about 6 billion RMB, it is about $1billion and the next year it moved up to 8billion RMB and then just last year, it more than double; almost a triple.
Then for Nigeria, it seems it produces a lot of movies, about 20,000 yearly.  This is a very large production indeed, maybe because it is the most populous country in Africa. In the movie industry, we think the first step is to introduce Chinese movies to the Nigeria audience and then introduce Nigeria movies to China. For Chinese movies here, we have initiated a programme called “10” and “52”. “10” means ten best TV series and “52” means 52 best Chinese movies. We try to introduce these TV series and movies to Nigeria and so far Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) entertainment channel is showing some. Last year, we have the Hausa edition of “Beijing Love Story” and so we hope that in future we will have more.  Another point that we think our two sides could cooperate is in the area of animation production. We are thinking of inviting some experts in the animation area to go to China to have some exchanges with Chinese counterparts. To be frank, the cooperation in this area has a lot of potentials and hopefully it will become one of the asset points of our cooperation in future.
As the China Cultural Counsellor in Nigeria, what local foods do you like the most?
Last weekend, our Nigerian friend suggested we should have dinner together so he invited me to a Nigerian restaurant in Wuse and then we ordered some Nigerian rice and some yam, fish and then vegetables. During Sallah a Nigerian friend invited me to his home to eat Nigerian food. There are so much of grains, vegetable and stuff like that. Personally I think Nigerian food is quite good. But sometimes, we may find some foods not comfortable and difficult for us to enjoy.