by
BMDzukogi
First published in 2016
“They stand out in charming youthfulness and colourful banner emblazoned with the words ‘Hill-Top Arts Books’. They are attired in their school uniform of blue and white and some of the girls wear their scarves in the traditional Moslem manner – covering head and neck. You wonder what secondary school students are doing in a convention of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA). You will later find out that Halima Aliyu, Maryam Shuaib, Blessing Gambo, Augustine Adugbe, and Saddiq Dzukogi are authors in their own rights, and are at the Kano convention of ANA to represent their school, Hill-Top Model School of Minna. On their large table is array of books, booklets, magazines and paintings, many of which they, and others of their Arts Club, authored”
“Images of Tomorrow”, a report by Ken Ike in Thisday Newspaper, December 18, 2005, Page 95
It is important for older generations of Nigerian writers to establish platforms for the growth of literature in the country. Many of them rose to become leaders of Nigeria’s premier writers’ organisation without any identifiable effort at helping the upcoming ones in practical terms of institutional growth and development other than the traditional teaching in classrooms or accident of environment through partial association in which they later claim to be mentors to successful young ones. Mentoring is not a classroom situation or an association exercise. Ebedi International Residency of Wale Okediran, Abuja Writers Forum (AWF) of Emman Shehu, Ake Festival of Lola Shoneyin, Koko Kalango’s PortHarcout Book Festival must be picked out for commendation as platforms that help young writers in Nigeria. As usual, except for the Hill-Top Arts Centre, Minna, Northern Nigeria is busy carrying last in the establishment of literary platforms. Seriously, the literary platforms available today in the country are too few to accommodate thousands upon thousands of young writers needing mentoring and outlets for literary expression. Nigeria needs hundreds of literary platforms to grow thousands of young ones sprouting across her cities and villages, daily. Establishment of platforms for the promotion of teen authorship programmes is the answer for concrete development of creative writing in the country. The Niger State Government must be commended for establishing a book development agency.
In the absence of concrete help from the older ones, New Nigerian Writers (mostly young ones) have risen to help themselves and those coming from behind by establishing literary platforms for the promotion of writing in the country: Su’eddie Agema, Samson Kukhogo, Dan Teejay, Wale Owoade, TJ Benson, Servio Gbadamosi, Jerry Adesowo, Oribabhor Eriata, Nur’din Busari of AMAB Bookshop, Dike Chukwumerije, Azafi of Parresia, Khalid Imam, Benneth Nwanko, and the proprietors of Nigerian Writers Awards are visible examples. Evidently, the Hill-Top Arts Centre is one of the oldest of the recent literary proprietorship that are boosting production in Nigeria, today (2004 – 2016). This is talking about institutional development of young writers.
The Hill-Top Arts Centre opened another active trajectory for the development of Nigerian literature through her teen authorship scheme over ten years ago. What was in vogue before the idea of publishing single-student-author is school anthologies in Niger state. However, we veered off that tract to begin to publish students as single authors to enable them establish concrete attachment to the book by willingly opting to become writers. Hill-Top Model School where the Art Centre is located had her first anthology of teen authors in 1997 (Echoes of Young Minds), a practice in-vogue among few schools in Minna. Today, in the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), we are aware that among all the chapters of the federation, none does it like the Hill-Top Arts Centre, Minna. In fact, the chapters hardly do it.
The teen authorship tradition in Nigeria concretised institutionally at the Hill-Top Arts Centre with the publication of Saddiq Dzukogi’s book, Image of Life in 2004 through Classic Publishers, Minna. Today, what was an experiment has now become a national phenomenon for grassroots development of literature in Nigeria. In 1997, I had collected poems by students of Hill-Top Model School which I requested Abdullahi Ismail to help edit. At that time, Annual Schools Carnival of Arts and Festival of Songs (ASCAFS) was already catching fire, boys and girls of school age were showing great interest in creative writing in Minna, Niger state.
Realizing the numerous interests shown by students of Hill-Top Model School after Saddiq’s book, we decided to take on the task of publishing a few single-author-students of the school as a continuation of the scheme to make students proud authors of their own books. This time, the silent philosophy that motivated me into publishing Image of Life was also taking its roots in me which I thought should form the core of what we should be doing at the Art Centre. I also needed a place of my own as a Physical and Health Education (PHE) teacher who was (is) lost in creative writing to operate and experiment ideas beyond the traditional school literary and debating society for which I was alienated from active participation. Those in-charge of the Hill-Top Model School Literary and Debating Society had taken my activism in the school literary activities as an intrusion: they were terribly unfriendly. Their dilemma was why the successive leadership of the school continued to accord me great attention, why should the Principals continue to suggest my involvement in outside and inside school literary activities and to help train students, why should a PHE teacher get all the attractions? The school management was aware of their displeasure but didn’t budge to the ‘misery of their farting drums’. While they were busy competing with me in their limited minds, they never knew that I was privately looking for teen authors and not debaters in most of the students who swarmed around me. The highpoint of their intolerance was when in 1996 or 97, the school English and Literature teachers (minus Daniel Manta) removed names of two students who were my first known mentees in the school from the list of those going for ASCAFS, Bilkisu AbdulAziz Abarah was actually crying because she was going to miss ASCAFS. Alkasim Abdulkadir was calm as usual but you could see the trauma of missing ASCAFS spread over his face. I was angry and took them to the master in-charge. The two brilliant teen authors were accepted and won prizes. Years later, the teachers learnt to accommodate me and bore with the fact that what I was looking for was different from theirs. So, I continued to gather more students both from primary and secondary sections. I go to read to them, stories and poems in their classrooms. It attracted a lot of them to my pre-Art Centre years. I had students like Aisha Abdulkadir, Amina Tanko, Hiba Suleiman, the talking Ana Makama, Yvonne Odiachi, Deborah Ndubusi, Jane Kalu, Rukayya Ahmad, Blessing Gambo, Habiba Gani, Maijidda H Abdulkadir, Femi Quartey, Aisha Ibrahim Kuta, Philip Usigbe, Chinedu Oleh and more. There was Comfort Gana (who was off-and-on), she later became the tallest girl in the whole of ABU around 2000 – 2005. Eventually, the literary and debating masters began to pick some of my mentees for programmes, and the cold war ended. Balkisu, Alkasim, Ana and Amina established fame from primary school as broadcasters on FM, AM Radio stations as well as NTA Minna. Years ticked by.
Mallam Dan’Azumi Musa (a former principal) believed so much in my activities, he inherited the belief from Hajiya Jummai Agwai, the matriarch of Hill-Top Model School, Minna. Mallam Dan’Azumi had called me to form a photography club which was a resolution of either staff or PTA meeting in 2005. He requested me to come up with the modalities, I did. The core of what I submitted was that the school should surrender the unused portion of the school dining hall for conversion to Hill-Top Arts Centre so that it becomes an exclusive area for my teen authors in the school as well as the new photography club. My teen authors who still remained exclusively outside the school literary and debating society were made members of the new photography section of the Art Center along with painting and newspaper reading unit. Therefore, the first activities of the Hill-Top Art Centre were: Teen Authorship, Photography, Newspaper Reading, and Painting along with Craft as well as Singing. There was also a reading shelf in my office where students come to borrow books to read. I used to buy them from my outings at literary events around the country. Mallam Dan’Azumi quickly granted me the use of the section of the hall and later gave me some fund to create a stage in the art centre for performances.
I needed helpers at the Art Centre so I called on Garba Usman Katako to assist. Awwal Abdullahi Sakiwa was also invited. Hill-Top Model School is Kamar Hamza’s home. Some young and old ANA Niger members started coming to the Centre too. Yusuf Daniel Manta was seriously in solidarity with me. In fact, he was the one who later pushed Halima Aliyu to me after the Art Centre had commenced operations. I was happy to have her because she later turned out to be a fanatical reader of novels among members. The following students were the first set of members of the Art Centre: Saddiq Dzukogi, Augustine Adugbe, Blessing Gambo, Fatima Evuti, Aisha Evuti, Mohammed Kolos, Awwal Abdullahi, Suraj King, and Denise Noel Berje. Halima and Bobi joined later. Zainab Manko was a distant mentee, the father wouldn’t allow her to come to the centre. Some of the past presidents include Augustine Adugbe (2005 – 2006), Saddiq Dzukogi (2006 – 2007), Kingsley Barde (2007 – 2008), Chinedu Oleh (2011 – 2012), Daniel Ibikitan (2012-2013), Precious Okafor (2013-2014).
After Image of Life, the Art Centre published One Little Trick, One Painful Death by Halima Aliyu in 2005. We published Zainab Manko’s Penalty of an Orphan in 2005, both are illustrated children’s stories. When I left Hill-Top Model School for IBB University, Lapai (a state owned university) in August 2006, I handed over the Art Centre to Awwal Abdullahi Sakiwa (Painter) which he ran to 2009 and left for GSS Minna. We both returned to continue running the Centre in 2011 to reinvigorate it. It was Nurudeen Abdulwahid and Daniel Ibikitan that decided to meet me and warned that the Art Centre was dying because there was nobody to run it according to the philosophy establishing it. I called on Sakiwa and appealed to Kamar and Nupe Writer (Isyaku B. Ibrahim) to join us to reactivate the place. I called on Aminu S. Muhammad, Abba Abdulkarim, Prof. Faruk H. Rasheed, Prof. Muhammad Kuta Yahaya, Mallam Danladi Abdulhameed to assist financially. They all did. We summoned the energies of Munirat, Yerima, Saddiq, Abel, Paul, Hassana, etc., to return to the Art Centre to the point now that we publish a member every month through our monthly Teen Authors’ Flash. Thanks to our sponsors.
Upon our return in 2011, Mal. Attahiru Ahmed the Principal granted our request to surrender an unused room attached to the Centre for the establishment of Library Literati. The shelves found there were donated by Aminu S. Muhammad, Abba Abdulkarim and Mallam Danladi Abdulhamid. We also created the Sakiwa Muse Dome for painters and later built a fence round the facility with new trees.
The Teen Authors’ Flash presents a member that is able to complete a manuscript of not less than 50 pages and gets nominated for a month as guest writer within the in-coming year. The objective of the Teen Authors’ Flash which comes up on the last Saturday of every month is to announce to the immediate community and indeed, the Nigerian literary environment that a young writer is on the way into their fold from the Hill-Top Art Centre. It is always a glamorous event that witnesses the attendance of parents, family members, friends of the guest teen author, students, teachers, writers, political and community leaders, academics and well-wishers.
We do not only showcase the incoming teen writer, we seek the support of our guests at the occasion, well-wishers, sympathisers and organisations to assist in publishing the Authors as we proceed through the year. We ask not for a perfect script from the teen authors but a presentable work that serves as an indoctrinating tonic towards becoming a professional writer in the future, wherever they may go. Therefore, owning a book of your own as a teen writer becomes an unwritten covenant to stay the course of creative writing as you grow in life.
The publication is done at no cost to the teen writer for which he gets 800 copies out of a thousand, for free. 100 copies is for end of the year public presentation of twelve teen authors from the centre while 100 copies are kept at the Library Literati and for the use of the Art Centre. When Halima and Manko were published, 100 copies were given to them each but that has been reversed in our recent efforts at promoting the young writer by giving them the bulk copies. We believe that this will not only keep the student-writer in the literary art but the gesture becomes a point of reminder that guides the child throughout her writing years ahead, that others made sacrifices for her. Similarly, It puts on the teen author a huge responsibility of not just expressing his thoughts in book form but to also learn to live by them in a period of growth that is full of crisis as well as becoming charitable in their conducts. After all, others laboured to publish them free. By their books they also become instant role models for their peers within the school environment and beyond as well as attracting other teens to creative writing. So, for over a decade now, Hill-Top Art Centre has demystified the age-long toga of an author being an exclusive art for the adult. Life, we know as regenerative, therefore, ANA or writers in Nigeria must now focus on grassroots discovery and development of the literary art through teen authors to entrench a sustainable development and quality in the future. Ours is a model for all.
The Hill-Top Art Centre does not just sit back at the headquarters and wait for students to come to her, we go to schools to porch them to become members. But an interesting turn this year is the resolve to introduce writers clubs in willing schools like we did in Himma International School recently where I go to mentor members every Friday (9am – 10am). The essence is to extract a pledge from them and their parents that they will complete a script each and get the parents to publish them before graduation. Currently, there are three published teens in Himma International College: Fatima Daniyan, Zakiyyah Dzukogi and Hassana Etsu. Five more are currently working on their scripts to be finished in 2017.
Zakiyyah and Hassana are products of Home Teen Authorship Scheme. They hardly come to the Art Centre. This involves a mentor having sessions with a prospective teenage-writer towards developing a book. It is usually with the consent of the parents. When Zainab Manko was having difficulty coming to the Art Centre as a teenage-writer, I opted to be following her to the house. Eventually, we got her Penalty of an Orphan. Kamar Hamza did with the daughter of Madam Himma, Ummi Abdullahi over seven years ago. Paul Liam started with Zakiyyah on weekly basis in my house and later handed her over to Saddiq. I handled Hassana Etsu till we got her ‘When I am Gone’. She is currently a boarding student at Himma International College, Minna. I was going to the school to retrieve her new poems until we arrived at the book.
The hallmark of this mentoring is to help the child who could not come to the Art Centre develop her literary art potentials. Fatima Daniyan’s book is also through home teen authorship exercise. One thing about it is that, parents are the ones paying for the publication while we handle the technical aspect. In fact, Saddiq’s first book was also a product of home teen authorship as much as it started the journey at the Art Centre in 2004.
In our teen authors’ flash or teen authorship scheme, we are looking for the spirit of literary creativity which we will hold on to and nurture to greater heights. This is in line with the philosophy of regeneration which requires that young ones be taught a skill at early age if excellence must be attained at later years. The Hill-Top Art Centre is not necessarily teaching them how to write but mentoring them on writing. In fact, what helps the attendees is the ability to continuously engage in personal study and reading. And since mentoring in creative writing is about an experienced writer who advises, guides, teaches, inspires, corrects and serves as a role model to the teen authors or young writers, we engage in these, extensively, to achieve the goals of catching them young.
So far, three generations have been identified at the Hill-Top Arts Centre. The 1st generation includes: Saddiq Dzukogi, Paul Liam, Halima Aliyu, Maryam Bobi, Zainab Manko, Augustine Adugbe, Awwal Abdullahi, Khadijat Abdulkadir, Khadijat Abdullahi, Suraj King and some not remembered here. The next generation comprise of Khadijat Abdulkadir, Hauwa Shafii, Deborah Oluniran, Musa MC Yunusa, Fodio Ahmed, Maryam Manko, Daniel Ibikitan, Esther Ibikitan, Mustapha Gimba, Anas Dubanni, Richard Jacob, Fatima Zara Yusuf, Mercy Adams, Nana Aisha Abdulkadir, Khadijat Usman, Precious Okafor and others. The 2015 generation includes Peter Kwange, Victor Ugwu, Fidelis Obaseki, Khadijat Jagaba, Prescila Adesina, Amina Umar, Miracle Attah, Joy Solomon, Bashir Adamu, Sagir Saleh, Hassana Etsu, Zakiyyah Dzukogi and others. By the end of 2016, these new group will all be published; each will have his/her own book. Already, volunteer-sponsors for some have been gotten: Professor Faruk R. Haruna has already published Mustapha Gimba, Professor Nasiru Maiturare has published Peter Kwange, Diego Okenyodo, Teresa Oyibo Ameh have offered to publish one little writer each. Arc Yahaya D. Dauda has made a pledge to publish one before the end of the year. The Hon. Commissioner for Health, Dr. Mustapha Jibrin has promised to publish one child too. Hon. Al-Amin Bmitosai, the Chief of Staff to Gov. Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State just approved payment for two teen authors while Her Excellency, Aisha Babangida, the daughter of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida is coming in with a huge support of publishing five teen authors through her foundation. National Association of Niger State Students (NANNIS) has taken up to publish Prescila Adesina in April 2016. Oribabhor Eriata says he is considering publishing one teen author before the end of the year. This means that we already have sponsors for the teen authors in 2016. We are waiting for the Niger State Ministry of Education to join us, it is their students that are being published. We hope that the Ministry would make this programme a statewide affair, and annually, through our Art Centre. However, we must be grateful to the leader of the Hill-Top Model School’s generation of Writers, Alkasim Abdulkadir for getting the children such a big sponsor from Abuja.
It should be recalled that between 2006 – and 2007, Ahmed Maiwada solely financed the publication of six teen anthologies for six schools in Minna. They are GSS, Minna; Bosso Secondary School, Minna; FUT Staff School, Minna; Himma International College, Minna; GGSS Old Airport, Minna; Government Day Secondary School, Minna. Out of these you got Paul T. Liam, Khadijat Abdullahi, Joseph Badu Jnr and more.
We express our profound appreciation to our book donors over the years: Dr. Agatha Aduro; Su’eddie Agema; Odia Ofemun (50 books); Emmanuel Asigbe (Ghanaian); Mallam Dalhatu of FUT (100 novels); Hyacinth Obumseh (over 100 books); Blessed Mudiaga and; Dagga Tolar. Between 2011 and 2012, we were requesting Dagga Tolar to buy books and send down to us from Lagos. He has bought over 500 books for us. We look forward to many individuals and organisations supporting this pioneering effort at institutionalising teen authorship in Nigeria towards literary development in the country.
Ken Ike was the first to report our activities to the wider world when he met Halima Aliyu, Maryam Bobi, Blessing Gambo, Saddiq Dzukogi and Augustine Adugbe during ANA Convention, Kano in 2005. His essay in the THISDAY Newspaper of Sunday, December 18, 2005 entitled; Images of Tomorrow was the first notice to Nigerians by an intellectual watching us from a distance. He was followed by Camillus Ukah of ANA Imo whose extensive scholarly devotion to studying our teen authorship programmes is yet unmatched. This is outside his visitations to the Centre.
The cyclical benefit of the idea of our teen authorship scheme is that, the pioneer members of the 2004/2005 group are now mentors at the Art Centre where they train the younger ones on Saturdays and run the Centre’s activities while we advise. The older ones also engage in other capacity-building programmes like weekly Peer Review and AMAB Book Club for quality. They also conduct and edit the Hill-Top Art Centre anthology and the teen books being published. Another valuable engagement among members is literary exchanges among themselves and how they help edit their own works, off the centre. We have also constituted editors for the Minna Literary Series comprising Paul Liam, David Ishaya Osu, Saddiq Dzukogi, Halima Aliyu and Maryam Bobi. Halima and Saddiq are consulting editors for AMAB Publishers, Minna as well as for Polarsphere Books, Minna, along with Paul. Halima Aliyu and Maryam Bobi have since given out a part of the grant they got from Marine Platforms for the publication of 2015/2016 Hill-Top Arts Centre Anthology. The anthology which covers teen authors from schools in Minna will be ready, later this year.
Group photograph after a teen author’s flash
When I became the General-Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) in 2011, we exported this idea to the national body which Professor Remi Raji, the then President adopted and upheld throughout his tenure, the result of which was a national anthology of teen authors (Beyond Limits) which featured five chapters of ANA. Today, with the emergence of a new leadership in the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), signs are out that the idea of teen authorship may be relegated or abandoned. When committees were constituted, the national committee on teen authorship was not announced. The new President, in an interview, also said that the Nigerian Writers Series (NWS) might not continue. However, following some promptings, the leadership heard our pleas and mild protests and made pronouncements to the effect that both the Teen Authorship Scheme (TAS) and the Nigerian Writers Series (NWS) which are direct ideas from ANA Niger, are still alive.
Hill-Top Arts Centre is nobody’s property, it is a public property. I merely founded it. Hill-Top Model School merely provides the accommodation. Everybody you see there are merely volunteering. It is an NGO with the following trustees: Kamar Hamza, Makama Shekwo’aga, Isyaku B. Ibrahim (Nupe Writer), Awal Abdullahi Sakiwa and the author of this piece as the Chairman. All, in the name of the child, and the goodness of the future.
Let’s conclude with the words of Camilus Ukah in his paper on Harnessing Creative Writing as tool for Security: the ANA Niger Experiment: “It remains to say that the ANA Niger experiment of identifying young creative talents and regenerating them through literature using the instrumentality of the Teen authorship scheme is worthwhile and highly recommended for other branches of ANA”.
Note: Hill-Top Arts Centre got registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission in 2016 and became Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation.
