On 14 May 2002, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha addressed a motley audience to mark the opening of a public enlightenment seminar on arts and culture in the development of the Niger Delta. The sentiments expressed by the Governor would go a long way to ensure the start of an annual festival called the Africa Movie Academy Awards.
A special seminar on arts and culture in the Niger Delta was, to say the least, long overdue. The Niger Delta had produced a distinguished array of cultural ambassadors, among them J. P. Clark-Bekederemo, Gabriel Okara, Ola Rotimi, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and E. J. Alagoa, to name a few.
The seminar was welcome because the Niger Delta needed to have a clear definition of its place in the art and culture milieu and by extension in Nigeria’s history. Alamieyeseigha could not help but recall that his government was ushered in by the 1999 edition of the annual Seigbein Fishing Festival of Amassoma, and the Odi Ogori Ba Uge festivities. From the start, he was conscious of the immense tourist potential of Bayelsa State.
That was why he began by establishing the Bayelsa State Council for Arts and Culture, supporting it with a Directorate of Arts and Culture under the Ministry of Information, to sufficiently maximise the cultural benefits of the state. His government was also undertaking the construction of what turned out to be the most sophisticated cultural centre complex in the Niger Delta at that time.
Alamieyeseigha said: ‘It is not by accident that we have many historical and cultural attractions scattered across the state. Long before we came to realise the significance of the oil and gas reserves on our land, we were a cultural people. We place great premium on our dances and traditional sporting events.
‘Wrestling, dance and drama are indigenous to us. That is what makes us African. What we need to do is to recognise and apply their immense potentials, upgrade these attractions to international standard, and orchestrate their benefits to the larger society so that we can earn considerable foreign exchange in return’.
The state government had been making every effort to exploit the abundant human and material resources, some of which remain latent, with a view to broadening the horizon of the state for its physical and human development. The seminar gave practical meaning to the popular axiom that, for you to move forward, you must know where you come from. Or, to paraphrase Aristotle, for you to move the world, you must have a place to stand.
This was important because Alamieyeseigha had continually sought for the historical and cultural basis of any subject under his periscope in his decision making process. He would say: ‘For the people of Bayelsa State and indeed the good people of the Niger Delta to develop orderly, we must know where we come from. We must understand our culture, our environment and the social factors which are inimical to our individual and collective development and growth. We must clearly identify our value systems, and be sure as to whether or not they promote or hinder progress’.
To stimulate public discourse in the enlightened interest of the Ijaw, Alamieyeseigha considered a few areas of concern for the artist to function better. The first area of concern was language. He had always called for a concerted development of the Niger Delta languages. As far as he could see, Ijaw, as the language of the fourth largest ethnic group in Nigeria, had no national relevance.
The other three major ethnic nationalities, namely Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, were popular as the main national languages and are fully incorporated into the curriculum of primary, post-primary, and tertiary institutions. For a language to be used and incorporated in the syllabus for any level of study, it must be developed into text materials for use. The same could not be said for the Ijaw language.
That was why the Alamieyeseigha government set out to ensure that the Niger Delta University hosted an Institute of Niger Delta Studies to encourage the study of local languages and other cultural values among the Ijaw ethnic nationality.
‘We acknowledge the efforts of the many intellectuals who have done some substantial work to improve our standing in the local languages which convey our arts and culture,, but more work still needs to be done’, Alamieyeseigha said.
To talk about arts and culture was to talk about folklore, poetry and drama. To record these for posterity is to reckon with writers and scholars who trade in noble thoughts and ideas that seek define events. Human civilization, after all, is what it is today because of the ideas which have endured through the ages. Ideas have a power of resurrecting the soul of man and directing it to higher applications. Societal relationships can also be realigned by virtue of new ideas. The artist was instrumental in this process.
There was no doubt that a significant literary reawakening was taking place all over the country. Creative writing workshops, veteran research parleys, and small clubs of artists could be seen everywhere, attempting to make a headway in creative fiction, drama, and poetry.
Even so, the handicap of not being able to find public voices on account of the unfavourable economics of publishing was a great source of discouragement. That was why Alamieyeseigha’s government was willing to give direct assistance to authors who were making efforts to make Bayelsa proud. Given the benefit of hindsight, he was willing to consider setting up seasonal exhibitions and competitions in arts and culture so that dormant artists could begin to prod themselves into action, and project the image of the state for the better.
‘Let us refurbish our cultural policy to good effect. We must recognise our writers as couriers of knowledge, custodians of culture and the conscience of our people’, he urged.
In all this, he was equally willing to support the growth of children’s literature, and encourage Ijaw authors to write books related to the cultural background of Ijaw land, beyond the regular folktales.
To effectively mobilise conscience of young people and influence their attitudes for good, Alamieyeseigha insisted that Bayelsa State authors must write and publish the biographies of great men and women of the past, alongside historical fiction, with full pictorial illustrations.
This would provide a basis for children to develop inquisitive minds so that they could become inventors and discoverers in the fullness of time. His argument was that a society wherein the youths are awake to the delights of creative literature was guaranteed to be an informed and enlightened one, which could ultimately liberate its people mentally, and cause them to champion the ideals they hold dear.
He said: ‘I believe that an active literary culture in the Niger Delta will no doubt encourage the documentation of our folklore and recreate our historic and cultural exploits for posterity. Among other things, such a liberation process would even render the struggle for resource control a much easier challenge to overcome, and secure for the people the blessings and respect that come with self-actualisation’.
His pronouncement was a precursor to the success of the maiden Africa Movie Academy Awards festival in Yenagoa under the auspices of Peace Anyiam-Osigwe (nee Fiberesima), a noble daughter of the Niger Delta. It equally gave writers under the canopy of the Association of Nigerian Authors (Bayelsa State chapter) a boost to venture for literary laurels in the days to come. What’s more, Alamieyeseigha saw himself as a writer. He was the author of two books, even if they didn’t have anything to do with creative fiction, drama or poetry.
