By BM Dzukogi
The ANA National Teen Authorship Scheme has finally taken off on a full flight through the inauguration of a conference by the Association of Nigerian Authors at Logos International Secondary School (LOGISS), Awonmama in Imo State from 27th – 30th September, 2016.
Professors Sam Ukala, Prof. J.O.J Agbada and Prof Eyisi were there to do the academics while we were there to show the functional template of teen authorship scheme as pioneered by the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation, Minna. National Teen Authorship Scheme is one of ANA Niger’s numerous contributions to literary development in Nigeria, and Hill-Top Arts Centre is the home of it in the country.
The journey to the 1st ANA National Conference on Teen Authorship Scheme began after the establishment of the Hill-Top Arts Centre in 2004 and by the election of this author as the National Treasurer of ANA in 2005.
In 2006, we got Ahmed Maiwada to institute ANA/MAZARIYYA Teen Authors prize for poetry. Shortly after, we got the National Examinations Council (NECO) to institute another prize for teen authors in prose. Saddiq Dzukogi won the maiden edition in poetry while Halima Aliyu got Honorary mention for prose. They are members of the Hill-Top Arts Centre.
Our second effort to popularize the teen authorship scheme in ANA was in 2009 when ANA Niger hosted the Annual Convention of the Association of Nigerian Authors and released three national anthologies in short story (Shadows), poetry (Fireflies) and teen authors’ category (Breaking the Bud). This is a feat yet unmatched in the history of ANA conventions in Nigeria.
By 2012, after rising from the adoption of the scheme from my manifesto by the Remi Raji presidency for which I was the General-Secretary, Teen Authorship Scheme got enlisted as a national programme of ANA. A national committee was set-up and headed by Kamar Hamza with Camilus Ukah, Khalid Imam, Su’eddie Agema, Wole Adedoyin as members. The wife of Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu; former governor of Niger State, in the same year, donated the sum of N1m for the implementation of the scheme in five state chapters of Abia, Katsina, Taraba, Osun and Kogi. The result of it was a national teen authors’ anthology (Beyond Limits).
Following this, Mr. Camilus Ukah; an ardent follower of teen authorship programmes in Niger State visited the Hill-Top Arts Centre in 2012 and went ahead to facilitate the establishment of versions known as Creativity Centres in LOGISS and CRM Schools Awonmama.
They said theirs is creativity centre in order not to keep away the science student if ART CENTRE is used. We went to commission them the same year in Imo State. However, LOGISS has shot ahead of CRM by sponsoring the first ANA conference on teen Authors in Nigeria. Of course, I protested this move because, in my opinion, it should have held in Minna. Nevertheless, Mr. Camilus has scored a big one here.
As prelude to the conference, ANA members were invited from her chapters across the federation who will serve as State-Coordinators of ANA Teen Authorship Scheme. The Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation that has been pioneering the scheme was invited to provide a template for the national scheme based on the mode of operating the Hill-Top Arts Centre in Minna, Niger State. It was a good idea aimed at institutionalizing the scheme for accelerated development of literature in Nigeria.
Professor Ukala’s paper dealt on the usual technicalities of creative writing, language and children’s literature. It was an enriching paper. However, he forgot to make any reference to the contributions of the Hill-Top Arts Centre to the development of the teen authorship scheme in ANA and Nigeria. Both Prof. Ukala’s paper and the ANA President’s welcome address (which were printed) did not mention the place of Hill-Top Arts Centre nor the proprietors of the scheme in ANA Niger.
In fact, the word ‘Hill-Top’, ‘ANA Niger’ were simply missing in tongue and paper. It was a big minus. NECO and Mazariyya prizes were not mentioned either.
It was a huge gap, and they were too many. I had to remind Prof. Ukala when it was my turn to speak at the opening ceremony, of the incompleteness of his paper without the Arts Centre and chain of events that led to the convergence at Awonmama. Hajiya Jummai Babangida Aliyu’s contribution was absent. Even Mamman Jiya Vatsa who published teen authors in his days (Soldiers’s Children as Poets) was not anywhere in their papers.
Mamman Vatsa is first generation member of ANA in whose image Denja Abdullahi wrote some of his poems. I showed the audience books written by our teen authors both past and present: Saddiq Dzukogi, Halima Aliyu, Zainab Manko, Mustapha Gimba, Peter Kwange, Prescila Adesina, Phidelis Obaseki, Victor Ugwu and Anas Dubanni. I showed them our anthology; Dew Drops. I showed them how Saddiq, Halima, Bobi are now ANA prize winners right from their teen years; the very first steps that took us to Awonmama lie beneath their feet.
How could such moments be missing in the keynote and the president’s speech? The works of our second generation mentees like Paul Liam were shown to the audience. They saw Deborah Oluniran and Fodio Ahmed’s books we published. I told them how and why we do it free for the teen and young writers at the art centre or at the Niger State Book Development Agency.
The following day, my paper dwelt on the pragmatics of teen authorship at the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation mentoring centre which is the Hill-Top Arts Centre.
These ranges from the formation of the Arts Centre, reasons, creativity, creative writing, origin of mentoring, strategies, measurement of progress, methods of selecting mentees, modules of mentoring: online mentoring, critical discourse mentoring, visit systems mentoring, face-to-face mentoring, and other issues like originality, social cohesion, psychological make-up of teen authors, parenting, the mentor himself, sexuality, challenges of handling teenagers who have become young adults, the rebellion of a few at later days.
The conference ended for me by the invitation to return to Awonmama to join in the launch of LOGISS’ second anthology in November 2016. Sakiwa and I had a short time with the chairman of Parent Teachers’ Association who promised to look into our suggestion of constructing a new Arts Centre away from classroom environment for LOGISS teen authors.
Logos International Secondary School (LOGISS) is a big, rich catholic school where no woman goes in wearing trousers, and where boys and girls are not mixed in a classroom. Hear Awwal A. Sakiwa; Director of the Hill-Top Arts Centre: “I thought it is only Muslims that practice sharia. Did you see the pavilion too; boys to the right and girls to the left? Did you see how they sat in the hall?”
Dzukogi wrote from Niger
