Why I want to be ANA President – Remi Raji

I didn’t jump into the race. I gradually persuaded myself into it over some years now. I have felt that we needed to get our arcs together; we needed to put our house in order. It’s very crucial. I also feel the time is right for me, let me say that, I have come of […]

I didn’t jump into the race. I gradually persuaded myself into it over some years now. I have felt that we needed to get our arcs together; we needed to put our house in order. It’s very crucial. I also feel the time is right for me, let me say that, I have come of age in the scheme of things in this country as a writer and I also have all the necessary tutelage and connections across the country and Africa itself.

I will be short-changing the lots of many other writers and colleagues who look up to my leadership if I do not bring to bear some of the experiences that I’ve gained, the advantage of travelling and interacting with people in other cultures.

I’ve seen how things are done. I doubt if we have any school, any college or any university where art administration is taught and I felt that for long, being involved in an ad hoc organisational system like ANA, it is not only about ANA, it’s not about the incompetence of individuals, it’s about a general indifference towards organisational issues – that is: we even lack the competence to organise ourselves or follow up policies and actualising them in such a way that they will work regardless of  who is there or who sets them in place. So that is an important reason why I felt I should come in.

So what specific policies do you think you can put in place to make ANA better?

On January 15, 2011 I sent out what I called a preamble to my activist manifesto and there, I said there are three cardinal things that I am interested in. To be involved in advocacy, to be involved in the mentoring process and to build institutions around ANA as it is – advocacy in the sense that a typical Nigerian writer is endangered in terms of his social status, in terms of his economic status.

There are many writers who will be rubbing shoulders with writers abroad in terms of the stakes they take, in terms of their production, what they gain from what they produce.

There is also the issue of intellectual property right. Piracy is not only the lot of Nigerian musicians or Nollywood artistes. We also have piracy and it’s a major bane in the life of the Nigerian author. We want to dialogue with even our publishers so that our publications will meet the highest standards in Europe. It is not difficult to achieve, it’s all about building institutions.

All these things you are mentioning will require a lot of finance and we know that ANA is practically broke. So how do you intend to achieve this?

I dream where people think we have nightmares. I’ve been in places where people will say it is not impossible and it is when people say that, that I make it possible. This is not any political statement or gimmick, it is no magic.

When we say that ANA doesn’t have money, what makes it impossible for ANA to have money? Because of what we’ve learnt, yourself and I, is just to write. We just write. There are professionals at it and that is why I started by saying there is no system, no method of art administration in this country.

I have a 10 point programme of action which I have already packaged and the part that deals with what you are saying now says that we need corporate organisations. I always get back to Nollywood because they are the beautiful bride of our cultural and entertainment industry, and that is just one-tenth of what the writer does.

The scriptwriter who writes for Nollywood is also a writer and should even be invited to be part of ANA. But we need to put our house in order. We need to have a well kept house. They think ANA is a house of anarchy and that’s why people don’t want to associate with ANA. We need corporate support.

Well, I’ve lived in South Africa on and off for about two years, 2000 – 2002, and I was at the Poetry Africa Festival in Durban. I’ve seen how it’s done. The committee of writers, they are not more than 50 who did the magic. What you need to do is go after those who are friends of authors.

We can do a lot by partnering with cultural centres of different embassies in the country, we can also actually engage our cultural ministry and let them see the kind of things we are doing. The cultural ministries of most countries always support their writers. We are not a money spinning organisation but we can make it happen. I have a number of ways by which we can generate funds.

There is this general apathy among the writing community where ANA is concerned. How are you going to change that?

In the last few months since I said I was going to contest for ANA presidency, things have started to change. I don’t want to blow my own trumpet but you can find out from the average Nigerian writer who has been part of ANA over the last five or 10 years, many of them have said, oh, you want to contest? We are coming back to ANA.

What I have done is just to use myself as a sacrificial lamb, put myself forward as the lightning rod to get people from Maiduguri to Lagos to Port Harcourt to bring ourselves together in Abuja. For me, it’s a lot of sacrifice, I am a travelling man, I am involved in a lot of work. I am currently the head of department in UI and when I finish my tenure, they may want to extend it and I say first and foremost, I want to dedicate my life to the new literary renaissance in Nigeria that is coming.

I want to be in the forefront. There are many young writers who are coming up and they are looking for someone to drag them up, they are looking for a mentor. ANA should be a mentoring house for other authors coming up.

Let’s talk about ANA’s most prized possession, which is the ANA land here in Abuja. It has been under contention for ages. What are you going to do about it?

It is part of the 10 point programme that I sent out. In my manifesto, I said that I am going to be involved in collaboration and look at the positive aspect of what has been done in the past towards making that ANA estate possible.

Some of the things I have highlighted may not be achieved in full in my tenure of two years or four years as the case may be but I want to establish certain institutions that even when I leave, other people coming in will not have cause to change, because I would have made it in a very democratic way for everyone to be involved. There is a light on the horizon concerning the ANA land you referred to.

Mr. Odia Ofeimun, who is now in charge of re-evaluating the land, has been on the right path and what we need to do is to consolidate on what has been achieved so far. Over the years, there have been certain wrong steps that have been taken. We are not going to worry about that. All we will do is get on the right path and see what can be done from there.

Finally, any last words for the Nigerian writer?

I always have words for the Nigerian writer. Believe in what you do. Dare to dream that these things are possible.

When you dare to dream and you dream it, it will be possible. I have been very privileged as a writer. When they say that poetry does not sell, that people don’t buy poetry, I have published collections and each one has sold out. So always believe in yourself and then learn the tricks of the trade. When you learn the tricks of the trade, then you can call yourself a writer.