Northern Nigeria Writers’ Summit (NNWS)

Formation of the Summit

ANA Niger went to the Jos convention in 1999 with the idea of convening a meeting that would put into action the 1st Northern Nigeria Writers Summit. The objective was to begin the process of a deliberate strategy to organise the community for greater action in the production and effective distribution of books to enhance the literary craft of ANA Members and accelerate reading culture in the Nigerian child.  

Other branches of Northern Nigeria accepted the proposal, and Professor Idris Amali chaired the first meeting of the summit. Ismaila Garba was appointed the secretary. A working committee was set up to prepare the modalities. However, the scattered nature of members drawn from the branches in the north did not permit effective action. This condition remained until another ANA Convention at Port Harcourt, where ANA Niger called another meeting; Prof. A. K Babajo chaired it. Professor Abubakar Rasheed supported him, but there needed to be a headway. At the Makurdi ANA Convention sideline meeting, which BM Dzukogi chaired, the Kaduna State branch was given the right to organise the first edition. The simple reason was its centrality to other northern states. After a series of meetings in Kaduna, it became clear that the summit would take a little longer to realise. Meetings continued at the Lokoja and Kano conventions. The Kano ANA Convention was in 2005. In Kano, Prof. Yusuf Adamu warned that the idea would die if no state volunteered to host the first edition. At the Bayelsa convention, the Niger State branch took up the challenge to organise the summit. 

The summit became concretised after the election of the current Governor of Niger State, the Chief Servant, Dr. Muazu Babangida Aliyu, when he declared his support for it to hold in April 2008 during a courtesy call. As we converged on Minna from 4^th – 7^th May 2008, it will go down in history that the Chief Servant of Niger state almost single-handedly sponsored the event; this is in addition to other packages he promised writers in the State, which included writers resort and publication of titles by members of the state branch of ANA.

As we brainstorm on the future of creative writing in Northern Nigeria, the conveners hope, among others, that effective strategies will be articulated in publishing and marketing. The summit is proposed as a biannual event. The Kano branch of the Association of Nigerian Authors is the next host in May 2010.  

Kaduna couldn’t host the Summit as planned until Kebbi volunteered to host it in 2012/13. Thereafter, Katsina hosted it before Maiduguri did in 2018. In 2022, Katsina hosted again. 

At the Katsina Summit in 2016, BM Dzukogi was appointed the pioneer Chairman, thereby taking the helms of affairs of the organisation out of ANA’s hold. The Dzukogi Executive registered the Northern Nigeria Writers Summit in 2019 with the Corporate Affairs Commission, making it a full-fledged art organisation in Nigeria. Prof. Olum Obafemi assumed the Chairman of the board of Trustees. The current Chairman is Dr Abu Sabe, while Isyaku Bala Ibrahim of Minna is the Vice Chairman.

GOALS OF THE SUMMIT

The Northern Nigerian Writers’ Summit (NNWS) is designed to achieve the following goals: 

1. To provide a virile platform for periodic discussion, articulation and propagation of the vision of a corporate Northern Nigeria in terms of its educational, literary, cultural, social and political directions, and channelled through the deliberate publication of books, journals, biographies, autobiographies, etc.
2. To ensure a sustained and structured approach to matters relating to educational cum literary, cultural and social development of the North.
3. To create a reading and learning culture through programmes in educational institutions and the media.

OBJECTIVES OF THE SUMMIT.

The main objective of the assembly is to set an agenda and plan of action for the writers’ community in Northern Nigeria in the following areas:

1. To bring together writers, academics and intellectuals periodically to fashion out ways and means of enhancing literary and educational development in the north.
2. To pursue the implementation of ideas generated at every summit.
3. To resurrect reading programmes, school literary competitions, publishing and marketing of teen-authored books.
4. To celebrate distinguished writers of the northern region and crave for the institutionalisation of a prestigious Northern Writers’ prize.
5. To collaborate with and seek the support of state governments, corporate organisations, international donor agencies, non-governmental organisations and individuals toward realising the stated goals.
6. To harness and package northern indigenous cultural elements like proverbs, myths, legends, folktales, etc., into books and dissemination via print and electronic media.
7. To protect the interest of writers in the north in both peaceful and challenging circumstances.

8.     To effectively integrate non–English writing northern writers into the mainstream of Nigerian literary tradition as well as world bodies of writers. 

9. To create and support a cadre of teenage and young writers through effective mentoring programmes.

To develop and enhance the literary quality of our public libraries through donations of books by members and advocating for regular stocking of libraries by the northern state governments.