- 2 hours ago
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. Obi Asika, who will be sharing some reflections with us as well.
00:04He is the DG of National Council for Arts and Culture.
00:09And a long-time friend of mine as well.
00:12So, welcome Mr. Obi Asika.
00:18Good evening, everybody.
00:20Good evening, everybody.
00:22Good evening.
00:23Yeah, I needed some energy back.
00:26Yeah, Wana, thank you and good to see you.
00:31Hiding at the back.
00:34I'm going to follow the previous speaker who, as he said, I'm going to stand on established protocols.
00:42Thankfully, there are not too many government people here, so I don't have to remember anybody's titles.
00:46But I would like to say good evening to all the distinguished guests, colleagues, friends of culture, ladies and gentlemen.
00:55It's a pleasure to be here.
00:56Anita has been in my ear for at least a month plus to make sure I was here.
01:03So, I want to thank her for making sure I was here.
01:07And certainly, there's a couple of people here that I wasn't expecting to see here tonight.
01:13Dave Fowler.
01:14I don't know where you're sitting, but he showed up here.
01:17It was great to see him.
01:18And Giles Pepiat, who I didn't realize was going to be here until I saw his name on the program a couple of hours ago.
01:26And my brother, Abubakar Suleiman, the banker who is really an artist at heart.
01:32You know, we claim you to the creative side.
01:35I know you're supposed to be in economics, but we claim you to the creative side.
01:39So, I was asked to speak to Nigerian soft power to sort of the journey over the last 65 years and perhaps looking forward a little bit.
01:49So, here goes.
01:51We gather today to celebrate one enduring truth about our nation, the power of the Nigerian story.
01:57If you don't know it, we're going to hear a few things tonight.
02:00For more than six decades, Nigeria has shaped how the world experiences Africa, not through armies or oil, but through ideas, innovation, rhythm, and human brilliance.
02:13This is the essence of soft power, the ability to attract, inspire, and connect without using coercive force or military-industrial state.
02:22And no African nation has done this with more courage, creativity, and consistency than Nigeria.
02:26Excuses to my brothers in South Africa, Kenya, and a few other places, but I'm in Nigeria, and I'm Nigerian, so I'm going to say what I'm going to say.
02:36Yeah, no apologies for that.
02:39Before modernity, you have the technical cultural genius of the ancestors, of our ancestors.
02:45Our creativity did not begin yesterday.
02:47It's as ancient as the soil beneath our feet.
02:50Nigeria's earlier civilizations were techno-cultural, blending science, metallurgy, mathematics, and spirituality into one seamless expression of human intelligence.
03:00The Noc civilization, it says 1000 BC here, but I believe it's a bit older, produced terracotta forms that predate classical sculpture from Greek, from the Greco-Roman period.
03:11The FM Benin bronzes revealed precision metallurgy and artistic mastery centuries before Europe's industrial age.
03:20In Legia, which is a place near Ansuka, in the southeast, and over 2,500 years ago, on the surface today, you will still see the iron ore deposits that show that man was...
03:35That's one of the first places on earth that man controlled metal, and was now able to apply it to society and culture.
03:43There's a place called Nsube, in the southeast of Nigeria, which had pyramids up until about 100 years ago, which have now been eroded.
03:54And these are just remnants of classical architecture that we see around us.
03:58The Nsibides script, which is a pre-digital language of law, philosophy, and design, is perhaps our early Internet of Symbols.
04:08If some of you have watched Black Panther, one of the things that I enjoyed about that film, Ryan Coogler, the director, a few years ago, in this same period of time,
04:19you know, November is kind of like Lagos' creative period, he was here when Disney had a Wakanda Forever premiere.
04:28And I asked him a question, because in Black Panther, you may not know this, but if you remember the film,
04:37the sister of Chala, Shuri, is the person that animates the vibranium, and it comes from the tips of her fingers.
04:46And I remember when the film came out, I found out that what he had done was he had, in essence, digitized Nsibidi
04:55and made it an active agent in terms of its ability to animate power, which I found very fascinating and very powerful,
05:04because a lot of times we walk past our own essence, our own capacity.
05:09And that's one of the reasons why I've always talked about, if you're Nigerian, you know who Shango is.
05:14Does anybody here know who Shango is, who's not Nigerian?
05:20Okay, just a couple. Shango?
05:22Uh-huh, Shango?
05:23It depends on the intonation, I mean.
05:26But, you know, Nigerians will always say that it's about packaging.
05:29Because I always say, what's the difference between Shango, my friend, and Thor?
05:35And people will say, it's packaging.
05:38And I say, no, it's about $50 billion.
05:41Because we have abandoned our essence, we don't engage it, we don't invest in it, we have not reimagined it.
05:48And we're all going to complain when Marvel or Disney do exactly what we should have done already.
05:53So, one of the things about when you are blessed with what we are blessed with,
05:58you have a responsibility to activate and animate it and bring it to the world in fresh forms so that they can engage it.
06:07Because Nigeria has always been a maker nation, where blacksmiths were engineers,
06:11priests were scientists, and art was architecture.
06:13So, the truth of the matter is, we are yet to tell our story fully.
06:19We have not celebrated Nigerian greatness through the ages.
06:22Nor do we really celebrate it today.
06:25Nor have we canonized our civilizations.
06:29And the truth of the matter is, even with difficult times and difficult economic programs,
06:35I'll tell you something.
06:38About a few years ago, I'm not going to say how long because it's going to age me.
06:42But a few years ago, I was responsible for bringing a television show called Big Brother to Nigeria.
06:48And it still is the biggest television show in Africa, Big Brother Nigeria.
06:52So, because of that, if you actually go on Google and you type in Big Brother Nigeria,
06:58you get thousands of pages about a television show.
07:03But guess what?
07:04Before the TV show, before 2000, whenever it first came,
07:09I almost gave that away.
07:10Before that time, if you actually searched for Big Brother Nigeria,
07:14what you would see was 50 African nations thanking their Big Brother Nigeria for various interventions,
07:22whether it was in art, whether it was in governance,
07:26whether it was in military interventions,
07:29whether it's in South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia.
07:34Nigeria spent billions of dollars on this continent,
07:38standing up for African nations, investing in all of them, giving them manpower.
07:44And unfortunately, we lack memory here.
07:47So we don't know and we don't think about it and we don't celebrate it and we don't tell the story.
07:52But it's an important story and it should be told.
07:54And part of this Nigerian story is the fact that Nigeria is both ancient and modern.
08:01When you're in Nigeria, you're going to deal with the ancient values of the ecosystem.
08:06You're going to deal with the origins of people because you're sitting in one of the places that is the origin of humanity.
08:14You have a people naturally framed by, formed by energy and context,
08:18living at the intersection of trade, spirituality and imagination.
08:23Our markets, which is one of my sort of things I talk about,
08:27but if you've ever been into a Nigerian market,
08:30then you know that negotiation is a second nature to us.
08:33We don't feel we've done a deal unless you negotiated it.
08:37And even the market woman is probably the hardest negotiator in Nigeria
08:40because she will take your last dime.
08:43But the thing about it is those markets represent one of the biggest left opportunities in Nigeria
08:50for business and commerce.
08:53The Nigerian markets from Computer Village in Lagos,
08:57Ladipo, Kano, Sabongari, Wuse, Onitsha, Ariaria,
09:03I'm just calling places that if you're Nigerian, you know what I'm talking about.
09:06But the thing about those markets is they represent about $50 billion a year in commerce.
09:12And guess what? All those markets are offline.
09:15If you were to look for any of those markets right now,
09:17you can't find any of the shops in any of the markets on your phone.
09:22If we look at digital economy, you would know that
09:25anybody that takes offline business and brings it online increases it by 300 to 400%.
09:30So I would say that in the markets of Nigeria sits about $200-300 billion of unrealized value.
09:37And that's the same ecosystem that has the muscle to drive the Nigerian creative economy
09:43to where we want it to go.
09:46In terms of Nigeria, when we talk about where we're coming from,
09:51you know, the writers who are really, at the end of the day,
09:55in the creative industries, the written word is kind of the base of everything.
09:59I think it's about storytelling.
10:02And storytelling can happen in many different ways.
10:04It can happen with visual arts.
10:05It can happen with literature, poetry, music, fashion, design.
10:11But you can't talk about African storytelling without talking with Chuna Achebe
10:14and things fall about.
10:17And it says here, restore the dignity of the African voice.
10:20I'm not sure that we had any dignity to restore at the time.
10:23I think what happened was he broke through the prisms of what literature was supposed to be
10:29at the time that he released his debut novel.
10:33And with Amos Tutuola, Wole Shoinka, Rex Lawson, Victor Olaia, Bobby Benson,
10:39Nigeria had people who were not just artists, they were architects of identity.
10:45And the issue is this.
10:47It brings us to me to Fela Kuti.
10:48If you're Nigerian, you know that Fela Kuti is perhaps our most powerful, potent, creative force.
10:58I like to think of him as a musician, prince, poet, philosopher, and rebel
11:03who came from a very comfortable middle class background.
11:07But he got radicalized in America by an African American woman.
11:12It's always the women.
11:14Who introduced him to the literature of Langston Hughes.
11:19The works of Malcolm X.
11:22And James Brown was on the radio singing, say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud.
11:26And Fela was like, what am I actually saying?
11:28He wasn't saying much at the time.
11:30He was, well, he thought he was doing a lot.
11:32He was doing progressive high life.
11:34But he reversed himself and found himself.
11:39And in finding himself, he unleashed Afrobeat.
11:42Which, of course, became the most important genre of music.
11:47But alongside him, you have King Sonny Ade, who's still performing.
11:51Somewhere tonight in Lagos or in Nigeria, he is performing.
11:55He's approaching 80.
11:56He does seven to eight hour sets.
11:59I guarantee you that nobody here can dance or move like him or has his energy.
12:05And he's been doing it for 60 years.
12:07And when you see him, it's just a humbling thing.
12:10Because you're looking at this man thinking, this man was doing this thing for 60 years.
12:14I'm not even 60 yet.
12:15You know, and he's actually the real thing.
12:20Onyanka Nwenu, Christy Essien, Chief Ebenezo Bay.
12:23These are people that amplify the Nigerian sound.
12:26You have Hubert Ogunde, who was really the father of Nigerian theater and storytelling at that level.
12:34And Eddie Obama, who pioneered Nollywood.
12:36Nollywood is our film storytelling platform.
12:42It is immense.
12:44It is massive.
12:44It is something that connects people at a level that is both emotional and cultural.
12:52And this is something that has now taken us to a place where no matter what you do or what you say,
12:59if you're Nigerian, you cannot deny Nollywood or its power or impact.
13:05Of course, when you're, I mean, I'm a sports fanatic.
13:08So not everybody is, but I am.
13:10And football is number one for me.
13:13And in Nigerian sports, I think you will find the heart of Nigerian soft power.
13:20Especially through football.
13:22I mean, here in my speech, I'm talking from Enigo Rangers to the Super Eagles.
13:27From Choma Ajunwa, who is still our only female, our only actually solo gold medalist, which is quite embarrassing.
13:36I think, because I think we have the talent and capacity to have had something like 100 individual gold medalists.
13:45But we only have one.
13:46And that speaks to the fact of what opportunity and investment looks like.
13:51But, you know, sports for a long time has been the biggest platform that gives energy and platform to our people.
14:02Some of us are still praying that we make the World Cup next year.
14:05It's a difficult moment.
14:07For those of us who are in the football side of things, it's, you know, supporting your team can always be difficult.
14:16But we pray and hope that Niger will be at the World Cup and participate and do what we're supposed to do.
14:24With Nigerians, it's always important to remember that, you know, we have a soft power brand called Nigeria Everywhere, which is coming from the Ministry of Arts, Culture, Tourism, and the Creative Economy.
14:37And when they came up with it, I was like, that's kind of perfect because Nigerians are actually everywhere.
14:44Everywhere we go, we run into Nigerians doing something.
14:46And many of them have become symbols of brilliance and resilience, from Ben Okri and Shimamanda and Gozi Adichie, to Dame Shirley Bassey, going back to the James Brown soundtracks, Chiwetela Joffo and David Oyelowo.
15:03And these are all actually out of the UK.
15:06So not talking about the other 200 countries where the Nigerians are impacting in medicine, law, business, and technology.
15:13And it goes way beyond the creative industries, which was actually my remit to discuss.
15:19But the truth of the matter is, I feel that with Nigerians and with our energy, what has happened is, our Nigerian creativity has become a global currency.
15:32Driven and led by Afrobeats, something that I'm closely associated with and will carry with me forever.
15:40They told us it wasn't possible.
15:42There was no access points, there were no platforms, nobody was ready to invest, but somehow we did it.
15:49And now, we're all over the world, filling stadiums, filling arenas, doing it, and still, people say it's not possible.
15:59But the truth of the matter is, with focus and determination and with authentic expression, everything is possible.
16:07Our films stream to millions, our fashion is incredible.
16:10And for the first time, our creativity is achieving industrial scale.
16:16Over 10,000 pieces of content are loaded every single day online on digital platforms.
16:22On YouTube alone, there's over a million YouTube channels with 100,000 subscribers that are owned by Nigerians.
16:29On Spotify alone last year, 30 billion Afrobeats streams.
16:35To give you context, there's another 500 DSPs.
16:38DSPs are the platforms that play music, from Amazon Music to the rest of them.
16:44And this is really the new export economy.
16:46That message is for the central bank, who I hope is still here, and for the bankers.
16:51Because the export window for Nigeria for film, music, fashion, and food is absolutely massive.
16:57But we do need the economists, the bankers, and the financial people to key in and not be the second people to the table.
17:06Because the first people to the table have almost always been the international side.
17:11So it's time for Nigerians to back Nigeria, to back Nigerian content and culture, and to push through.
17:19There's some stuff here about some of the platforms that we're building.
17:22I'm going to skip through that.
17:23But if you're interested, we are open for business.
17:27We believe strongly that in Nigeria, digital technology and digital platforms are part of the key to scaling everything that is happening in this country.
17:37And for you to really participate at the level where you will see the benefits of sitting in a country where the average age is 18, the amount of people who are here, and the amount of interest they have, and how they are connected to this culture.
17:54But we are still lacking certain goods and services, specifically product, merchandise.
18:01And if you think about, I'll just give you a quick example.
18:05Rihanna, that I'm sure everybody here knows, has probably sold two, three hundred million records.
18:10But that didn't make her a billionaire.
18:12What made her a billionaire is a fashion line called Fenty for black women.
18:17And I'm telling you right now, Nigerian creators have over a billion followers, but we're not selling any product.
18:25And that has to change.
18:26And that means that we need business and industry to get involved, because we need to move from influence to industry.
18:34We have influence, we have attention, but what we're looking for is how do we bring capital into this conversation and build this down into actual industries that can scale, or businesses that can scale.
18:48So, I'm trying to finish in time.
18:52I know you're on me.
18:55But before we finish, the most important thing I want to say, really, is let's tell our stories.
19:02We're yet to connect the dots of our shared history and identity, both within Nigeria and across the black world.
19:10Not leaving out my white friends, of course.
19:12But I have a primary audience that I'm looking for.
19:16It's time to understand who we are and where our people are, because when you trace the DNA of the black world, the lines lead back here to Nigeria.
19:26Scholars estimate that nearly 60% of all black people worldwide, Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, America, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and beyond, are of Nigerian descent.
19:36From the Yoruba in Bahia, to the Igbo in Jamaica, from the Beninanific traces in Haiti, to the House of Rhythms in the Americas, our fingerprints are everywhere.
19:47This is not a coincidence.
19:49It's a calling.
19:51Nigeria carries a civilizational responsibility to lead Africa and our diaspora towards unity, dignity, and discovery.
19:58To awaken the connections between Lagos and Bahia, Enugu and Havana, Onicha and Kingston, Beninan and New Orleans.
20:07When we tell our story fully, we'll connect the circle of our people.
20:10When we build those bridges, we reclaim the power that history once scattered.
20:15From Achebe to Afrobeats, from Ife Bronze to Blockchain, from Enugu Rangers to the Super Eagles, from Ledger's furnaces to the ICE hubs,
20:24Nigeria's story is one of eternal creation.
20:26Our soft power is not an accident, it is inheritance, but the opportunity is actually now to back Nigerian creators and ideas,
20:36to scale our talents, and turn influence into industry.
20:40Our DNA is innovation on steroids, and with focus, investment, and pride, Nigeria and Nigerians will be unstoppable.
20:49We must move from attention to enterprise, from influence to capital.
20:54The long-hanging fruit is ready, products, merchandise, and experiences that turn global admiration into lasting economic growth.
21:03And as we do so, we have to carry the black world with us, because this is actually an ancestral connection.
21:10When Nigeria leads with the culture, the world tends to follow with respect, because Nigeria is not just a country, it is the root of a civilization.
21:18And the right time to tell our story, unite our people, and claim our destiny is now.
21:25Welcome to the party. Nigeria is ready.
21:28Thank you very much.
21:30Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.
Recommended
2:20
|
Up next
0:54
5:29
3:09
0:56
2:14
1:05
16:01
15:44
Be the first to comment