There is one thing no Senatorial District in Nigeria can take away from the Niger East Senatorial District of Niger State: it is the largest producer of teen authors in Nigeria. The current Senator is Muhammad Sani Musa (313); the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, who just approved a publishing empowerment package for new teen authors to be published by the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation (HCAF).
The Niger East Senatorial District also boasts of the largest teen arts festival in Nigeria, initiated by Alh. Bala Abdullahi Kwatu. It is called HIASFEST; Hadiza Ibrahim Aliyu Schools Festival.
The new Teen Authors’ Publishing Scheme by Senator Muhammad Sani Musa involves drawing two teen authors from the nine Local Government Areas of the Senatotial District. The scheme is expected to produce twenty new authors into the Nigerian literary space with Chanchaga Local Government, which is the epicentre, producing four.
This huge initiative by the Senator is not his first major engagement with Nigerian young writers. In 2021,he donated a magnificent building to the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation as its national headquarters. Today, HCAF, with her numerous branches in Nigeria, is one of the few art organisations in Nigeria with prominent, identifiable accommodation, housing different units.
Senator Sani Musa’s third gesture to HCAF is his approval for the inauguration of an International Colloquium to serve as a concrete platform for national and international dialogue for the advancement of knowledge and development of Niger State. The teen books would be presented to the public at the inaugural edition of the colloquium.
The new twenty books by Senator Sani Musa will take our haul to over sixty teenagers published by HCAF since 2016, which began the second phase of publishing students as individual authors. Saddiq Dzukogi (2004), Halima Aliyu (2005), and Zainab Manko (2005) hold the exclusive seat of phase one. This is the 22nd year of the formation of the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation. Its successes are too numerous to mention.
No doubt, the Senator has redefined political representation through potent programmes for young people of his Senatorial District. Currently, over 200 students are abroad studying under his scholarship, while about 1000 others are home enjoying the same gestures.
