by Wilfred Okiche

 

It is hard being a Nigerian citizen today.

The country is so dysfunctional that even on the best days, very little appears to be working. The headlines point to this. Economic downturns, growth that is too little to be excited about, yet another uninspiring presidency, civil servants who haven’t been paid entitlements in months, forceful evictions and displacement of citizens, Boko Haram, Biafra, restructuring calls. And these are just the man-made disasters.

Heedless warnings about climate change processes have brought on some of the heaviest floods in recent times and gully erosions have sacked entire communities.

Such a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.

But looking beyond the headlines, and beyond all the negativity, there has also been plenty to celebrate about Africa’s (once) sleeping giant.

The biggest Nigerian success stories of the last few years however, have not come from usual suspects like politics (politicians are thieving crooks,) business (Nigerian owned business have a terrible record scaling,) the economy (recent gains were offset by a crippling recession,) or science (what science?)

The unusual bride has been the arts and culture sector, an often overlooked industry, presently enjoying a reawakening and consistently posting decent returns this past decade.

In the not so distant past, parents discouraged their wards from venturing into careers in the creative arts, as they were considered second rate and yielded only few returns. These days, due to individual and collective successes, by Nigerians, especially on the global stage, the story is changing. Within and outside the country, there has been an increased demand for local content that appeals to a broad base of people. This interest has helped cultural content become the country’s most visible export since petroleum.

La La land

Nollywood, the country’s high output film industry, had a watershed moment last year. FilmOne, Nigeria’s largest and most influential film distribution entity reported that fifty Nollywood movies brought in over 1 billion Naira in ticket sales in 2016, accounting for about 30 percent of the total ₦3.5 billion generated from the country’s 28 cinemas. A healthy chunk of this money came from The Wedding Party, the most successful Nollywood film ever, according to box office receipts.

Moses Babatope, executive director of FilmOne, which tracks industry data religiously, projects that by the end of 2017, total box office takings should hit at least 5 billion Naira with Nollywood films like the upcoming sequel to The Wedding Party expected to bring in about 40 percent of that number.

Since inception, Nollywood has confounded observers and critics alike. Long derided for its poor quality filmmaking, the industry built from the ground up, by the tenacity and resourcefulness of a few, has outlasted critics mostly because it filled a vacuum that went hitherto undocumented.

Nicole Brooks, manager for the Canada based CaribbeanTales, a media company focusing on making Caribbean-themed content opined at the Durban International Film Festival in July, “As a woman of colour, the appeal of Nollywood for me is representation. That I can come to the screen and see a heroine who looks like me, doing stuff I can relate to is extremely important to me.” Little wonder Nollywood is consumed voraciously in the diaspora, by the same people with access to the best of American and European cinema. So much so that Nollywood titles such as Dinner and 10 Days in Sun City are scoring limited theatre releases in foreign territories.

The unbridled focus on commercial interests still exists but local filmmakers have also showed some willingness to improve on quality, as budgets increase and technical support becomes more readily available.

Izu Ojukwu’s 76, a historical drama based on events related to the 1976 military coup, was one of the biggest grossers of 2016 and Ojukwu has since entered post-production stages for his next project, another historical epic, Amina based on the legend of Queen Amina of Zazzau. Cameron Bailey, artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival, impressed by the industry’s can-do spirit chose eight Nollywood films for the Lagos City to City programme.

Made in Nigeria

There are few things that can rally Nigerians together faster than the success of a compatriot on the global stage. Every singular achievement is a success story to be shared equally amongst any person who identifies as Nigerian. Because of this, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, perhaps the most famous Nigerian alive, has been elevated to national treasure status.

The author of tomes like Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun, Adichie is required reading in countries like Sweden. Her books have won important awards, been optioned for film adaptations, her words have been sampled by Beyoncé and the world genuinely cares what she has to say. It isn’t unusual for Nigerians during conversations about their country, abroad, to revert to the famous author for relatable proof that Nigeria isn’t all about corruption and strife.

Adichie might be huge, but she isn’t the only literary leading light. Writer and academic, Nnedi Okoroafor was introduced to a larger mainstream audience this year when her World Fantasy Award-winning novel, Who Fears Death was optioned by HBO to be adapted into a television series with A Song of Ice and Fire series creator, George R.R Martin attached as executive producer. Okoroafor has also been commissioned to pen a three issue Black Panther comic for Marvel.

When the legendary American book critic Michiko Kakutani announced her retirement from the New York Times, she chose to bow out with a tender, effusive consideration of Stay With Me, the debut novel by author Ayobami Adebayo, which was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize.

Proudly Nigerian

As a performing pop musician, to score a Billboard Hot 100 number one single is to join an exclusive club. Singer, Wizkid entered the history books last year, when he joined Canadian rapper Drake and British singer, Kyla to achieve this feat with the song One Dance. He is the first and only Nigerian to manage this feat.

In September, the spotlight was on Wizkid- and on Afrobeat- when he performed his own material for two hours to a sold out, diverse audience at London’s 5,272 capacity Royal Albert hall. Thanks to Wizkid and his contemporaries, Nigerian music is enjoying a renaissance, blasting out of speakers in far off countries like Australia and Russia.

The influence of the iconic Fela Anikulapo Kuti on the culture is as large as it has ever been twenty years after his death. With an annual concert series, a Tony winning Broadway show staged in his honour, plus various tribute bands scattered around the world, the legend of Fela continues to thrive.

From music to art, the story is the same.

Nigeria made her debut at the 57^th Venice Biennale, the world’s most prestigious and storied contemporary visual art exhibition in May this year with a well-received curation from some of the finest visual artistes working today.

Peju Alatise, a mixed medium artiste and one of three Nigerians to show at Venice, won the FNB Art Prize for 2017 at the Joburg Art Fair and is single handedly trying to revive the local ceramic industry. When Los Angeles based Njideka Akunyili Crosby was awarded a MacArthur Foundation ‘’Genius Grant’’ this year, Nigerians glowered with pride and placed emphasis on her origins. Akunyili Crosby was at the second edition of Art X, Lagos’ biggest and shiniest contemporary art attraction.

Since oil was first discovered in commercial quantities in Oloibiri, present day Bayelsa state, the Nigerian economy has largely been run in one way direction, seeking easy rents while practically abandoning all other sectors to ruin.

The much celebrated economy rebasing exercise conducted in 2014 highlighted the folly of this decision, but also pointed the way forwards. Other viable sectors existed that could contribute to national development if allowed to blossom.

The euphoria that accompanied the rebasing exercise has since been tampered by a crippling recession which the country is only now crawling out of, but the lessons learned if anything, are more pertinent.

Nollywood and the creative arts industry was pegged to be growing at 33 percent, contributing over $6 billion to the newly rebased Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Nollywood’s share alone- about 1.2 percent of the revised GDP number may seem like a drop in a vast ocean but when assessed in terms of the number of jobs it delivers for young persons and should the potential for sustained growth be accounted for, it becomes a terribly big deal.

Thankfully government is waking up to this reality and has made the right noises about supporting the creative sector. But without massive investments in infrastructure, most of these interventions are unlikely to trickle down. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has championed a World Bank-certified country wide ease of doing business initiative, an important move as the creative arts is invariably linked with all other sectors of the economy. But it is hard to expect tangible returns in the absence of a coherent, broad based, long term policy thrust.

Individual achievements are great for the feel good factor, and Western facilitated successes will always be aspirational. But for the creative arts sector to truly take off, a thriving local industry with multiple entry points needs to be established.

The numbers are there, the momentum is gathering. Would be a shame to let it all slip away.

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The writer tweets from @drwill20