Writers have been harnessing their craft for progressive change, says Vicky Sylvester

At 10.00am on February 5, 2025 at the Academic Conference Hall, University of Abuja main campus, scholar-writers will gather for a roundtable conference for the unveiling of the university’s Centre for Creative Writing, with Prof. Mnguember Vicky Sylvester as director and host of the workshop. University of Abuja prides itself as the only Nigerian institution offering postgraduate programmes in creative writing. The conference has as theme ‘Creative Writing for National Development’, and a fine cast of scholar-writers who will speak. They include Prof. Bode Ojoniyi (drama), Prof. Tanure Ojaide (poetry), Prof. Maria Ajima (prose), Prof. Mahmoud Adedime (oral culture) and Prof. Azikiwe Peter Onwualu (creativity and digital technology). While workshop trainers will be Prof. Raznat Mohammed (fiction) and Prof. Simon Abochol (non-fiction), Prof. Dul Johnson will deliver the keynote address, with the Vice Chancellor Prof. Aisha Sani Maikudi serving as chief host. Registration for the roundtable conference closes January 20, 2025 – creativewritingconference.rsvpify.com. ANOTE AJELUOROU spoke with the centre’s director, Prof. Sylvester

So what exactly informed the idea of the conference for Creative Writing for National Development that presupposes that something is missing in Nigeria’s creative writing that the conference intends to address. Is that the case?
YEAH, but you know very well that what we write impacts the lives of people around us, whether it is social or political. When we tell our stories, whether fiction or non-fiction, it has a lot of power in shaping societies. It influences public opinions; it actually drives meaningful change. Was it yesterday? I was listening to Prof. Wole Soyinka giving the government three options of what they should do, and one of them was: ‘why do Christians and Muslims have public holidays and the other (African) religions don’t have a public holiday? And he’s asking government to immediately make a public holiday for the others. People are bound to talk about these things, think about them and come up with an agreement on what they should do, because it’s time we began to listen to our own stories and traditional ways of life, and see how they affect us and influence people.

So, writers have been exploring and harnessing their craft to become effective for progressive change in our rapidly evolving world. The former Vice Chancellor of the University of Abuja setup the Centre for Creative Writing. It was quite pleasant. It’s something we have been working on, and I remember several years back, when I called Prof. Tanure Ojaide to come and train the staff, so that we could start running the programme. But for one reason or the other, he didn’t come on board until last year. Now, the main aim of the conference is to let our universities and other people who would want to take their writing further, to let them know that we are here. The programme is quite cheap and within the reach of anybody who would want to have a postgraduate programme, whether it’s PGD, MA or a PhD in creative writing, and we are offering that. At the moment, we are currently the only university offering postgraduate programmes in creative writing, and we thought we should let people know about it. Instead of running abroad, because most people who have done creative writing will tell you it was in the UK, America or some western university. So, that is one reason we are coming up with this round table conference to inform people that we are on ground and they can join us.

Secondly, because we are starting, we want to inaugurate the programme, so that the general public can partner with us and sponsor a building or a hall, or some structure which whoever sponsors we name after him or her. If it goes beyond that, we could name the offices, the rooms, and as we grow, we would also want to have a residency, so that people could come around the university, keep it lively, have their own reading and writing within the university environment for a week or two, and then move on. We are trying to get people of goodwill to come into the university on that day, inaugurate the centre and sponsor it to some degree within their capacity. I’m sure there are Nigerian writers out there who are interested in this programme, who would want to sponsor a project in the creative writing centre. And then we have a workshop to do some training for people who want to either have their first experience in creative writing, those who are writing who may have questions as to where they would go from wherever they are. So we have a workshop after the round table. These are the three key reasons for the conference.

Director, Centre for Creative Writing, University of Abuja, Prof. Vicky Sylvester

Usually, when our people go abroad for writing programmes, the fancy name for it is MFA – Master of Fine Arts. What would this one be called?
Well, you could have an MA, and we are expecting that there would be some people from the social sciences, and we are hoping that as time goes on, the core sciences would partner with us. I know the medical sciences are partnering with a few universities in the south, with the help of Dr. Wale Okediran, and I’ve invited all the faculties, the doctors and the law faculty, who I know is quite close to us; they are always there, and some other faculties to come and feel and have a taste of what it is, because they may be interested in creatively writing their own papers which are non-fiction, but we have people who can train them on how to write more effectively and more creatively than they probably are doing.

On the theme ‘Creative Writing for National Development,’ you said earlier that writing impacts society in whichever guise it comes – fictional and non-fictional. Would you say that Nigerian writing has impacted society? Would you say literature has made any impact on society given the sorry state Nigeria currently is?
I think if we look at the historical role of writers in driving change, we will see that there is quite a lot that writers have done, otherwise we know they have been chased here and there, and it’s simply because politicians and some people in government or in power would not want people to know exactly what is happening, and writers have a way of catching up with them. So, writers enlighten people. They use their works to introduce several ideas to people, whether it is about liberty, equality, or about governance, and they’ve been doing this. And I think the fact that leadership in several areas is not comfortable with what writers would often say shows that it has some impact; they’ve laid the intellectual groundwork and it’s a follow-up that younger writers are doing, and they would continuously build on what has been done on the historical background. So, our earlier writers, some who are still very much with us are still writing and talking; they are a great influence on future generations, and I think writing is working and doing a lot. The moment you produce a book that is sensitive in certain areas of society, everyone is after you – friends would talk to you about what you wrote and what you tend to achieve and all that.

And, of course, the people whom that book aims at are sitting very uncomfortably in their settees, and so we know that a lot is going on. When we look back, some of us who are elderly in academics, when we look back to those we learned from, we always talk about them. I’m always talking about Prof. Femi Ojo-Ade, who was the most published African folklorist, according to the Guinness Book of Records. So, we look back to him, and I know on my university platform, very often somebody will come up with something and say, ‘today is Prof. Ojo-Ade’s day.’ What happened that you’re quoting proverbs and touching about societal issues that are important to people? No matter how much we pretend, we know that we have to live with these things. They are a part of us, and we need to talk about them, and there is so much to write about. There is so much in everyday of our lives; there is always something. We come across something that needs to be written, whether it’s for children or adults. People are reading. My grandchildren just left here, and they said, “we need to go to a bookshop tomorrow for shopping,” and my daughter saying, ‘when these children go there, they will pack the whole place, do I have the money?’ I said, ‘no, when we get there, I will look at the books and tell everyone how many books they can each pick. If one picks three and another picks three, I’d say enough is enough. You will come another day.’ So, why are they reading from that young age? Someone is saying something that is interesting.

Some persons argue that maybe writers probably need to look beyond just writing, since society seems impervious to whatever they write. Probably that they too should go into politics proper. Would you subscribe to that?
Yes, but you know, even as writers, there are some of us who are political, and there are some of us who are not. We have different interests, and we talk about that quite often and, if you are political, the tendency is for you to write about something that is political. You want the world to know about it. You either want to challenge those who are in power or you’re a critic, or there is something you think should be changed or improved on, or something new that you think should be done. I remember very well, Charles Dickens, in one of his books I read many years ago. The House of Commons in the UK had to sit down and say, ‘is this really what is happening?’ Because Dickens said somebody owed another person money, and instead of making him work for it and pay back, you imprison him, and the time of imprisonment is commensurate to the amount that he’s owing the other person. So, he wastes his time in prison and the other person also doesn’t get his money. And that was changed as a result of his writing. He probably wasn’t very political, but something that was happening and probably affected him, because his father was in prison for debt, and if you write about that and you make suggestions, because writers capture a situation at times and then when they are interviewed, they say more about it. The book, at times, may not give reasons and conclusions or make suggestions; they let people just see the situations, but when you interview writers, when they have a reason to talk, they will talk more about that and make suggestions on how these things could be handled.

Do you see that sort of scenario playing out in today’s Nigeria, I mean the Dickens scenario, for instance, where what he wrote influences parliament to work in a positive direction?
For example, I was just saying that a few days ago Soyinka was talking about certain things that he thinks needs to be changed or done. For instance, he said all the people who had been killed, either for religious reasons, or where police have killed young people like the other girl (Deborah on Sokoto) who was pursued by her schoolmates and burnt to death, he said these people have to be taken to court; they should be sued and justice should be done. So these books are raising awareness. Sometimes, it’s awareness of moral atrocities that have been committed against people and they are talking about it. Sometimes, the book doesn’t even say as much as the author where he speaks about it.

You have an impressive list of writers who will speak at the workshop like Ojaide, Ojoniyi, Ajima, etc. So what should participants expect?
As usual, they want to hear what the centre wants to say about itself. They want to hear what contributions these modern writers can make towards the centre. They would want to hear what the guest speakers would have to say about creativity, because the whole idea is, if you’re writing, how creative are you writing? How much of your writing is the public aware of? Have you wielded power in shaping society, or you can see how some writers have wielded power in shaping society and influencing public opinion, and when I write, can I also effectively do some of these things I’m listening to? I think especially the younger writers who are writing and trying to write better, it would be an opportunity to improve on whatever they are doing.