“Minna 2009”: Writers’ gathering gets N10m Grant
The organisers of this year’s International Writers Convention received a huge boost from the Niger State government when the Chief Servant, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, granted the state branch the sum of ten million Naira to offset the costs that would be incurred during the hosting of the Convention. Amongst the major events slated for […]
The organisers of this year’s International Writers Convention received a huge boost from the Niger State government when the Chief Servant, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, granted the state branch the sum of ten million Naira to offset the costs that would be incurred during the hosting of the Convention.
Amongst the major events slated for this 28th International Annual Convention is the theme paper to be delivered by Professor Pat Utomi, cerebral scholar, entrepreneur and former presidential aspirant. This year’s International Convention has the theme “Literature, Leadership Development and Good Governance”. Members of the association chose Minna, Niger State, as the host of this year’s gathering slated for the 29th of October to the 1st of November 2009. Interestingly, this year’s convention would also draw the curtain on Dr. Wale Okediran’s tenure as President of the association. The association would also use the occasion to award deserving writers of 2009 at a dinner. Other awards would also be given by ANA to those who have contributed enormously to the growth literature and the arts in Nigeria.
Earlier on in the year on Friday the 27th March 2009, the ANA executive paid a courtesy call to the Chief Servant. The delegation was led by Dr. Wale Okediran and the General Secretary Denja Abdullahi, and it was at that meeting that Dr. Babangida gave a glimpse of his committee men to host writers this year when he drafted state government officials -Mohammed Maude Lapai, a Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Culture; Aliyu T. Ahmed Permanent Secretary, Economic Affairs; and Ibrahim Abdulmalik, Permanent Secretary, Information, with Alh. Umar Nasko as Policy Advisor— to be part of the LOC in order to expedite the process.
Hon. Usman Gwarjiko, the Chairman of the Local Organising Committee, in his response to the boost given by the Chief Servant, extended the gratitude of the LOC to the State Governor, and also appealed to corporate organisations, art patrons and individuals of goodwill to come to the aid of ANA Niger to complement what the State Government has donated in order to bequeath Nigerian writers and their guests a befitting International convention.
Without equivocation the Chief Servant has done more than any other person in Nigeria’s contemporary history in contributing to the growth of Nigeria’s body of letters from his support to the hosting of the first Northern Nigeria Writers Summit, to the grant of three million Naira for the publication of story chapbooks under the state’s reading campaign for school children, to the facilitation of a Writers’ Resort to be located in Minna, to being the major financier of the recently concluded Abubakar Imam Colloquium. He has shown much zeal and interest in the welfare of writers, not only in Niger State, but in Nigeria at large.