Minister of Arts, Culture, and the Creative Economy, Hannatu Musawa, has said that one of the major commitments of the ministry is to contribute $100 billion to Nigeria’s economy by the year 2030, and also to ensure that Nigeria becomes the creative hub of not just Africa, but the world at large.
The Creative Economy Minister said this in an interview with ARISE NEWS on Monday, where she also mentioned that the ministry, in hand with the Ministry for Industry, Trade, and Investment, are working together to create an Intellectual Property policy that will protect Nigerian creatives.
Laying out the mandates of the ministry of arts, Musawa said, “One of our core mandates is to have a cultural expansion- to make Nigeria the cultural and creative hub, not only of Africa, of the world, like I said, leveraging on the great strides that Nigerian creatives have already done, but also to have an economic expansion. We are part of the economic team, and what we have done in the ministry is we have committed ourselves to contributing at least $100 billion to expand the GDP by 2030.
“We’ve been able to do that by working with the likes of BCG- Boston Consulting Group, some of the best minds in the world. We have sat down on a table and we’ve said to them, we have to contribute effectively to increasing the GDP. Everything that we talk about is really about the economy. And the issue about the economy and how to make the economy very strong in Nigeria is very important and personal to the president.”
Musawa then explained certain steps being taken to ensure that this comes through, as she said, “One of the things that we knew was very important was to set up a regulatory and legal framework. We didn’t have any proper framework, any policy framework that was able to sort of support people or creators within the sector. So, we’re working on an IP (Intellectual Property) policy which is completely foundational. So, we’re working on that, there’s an inter-ministerial committee that has been set up.
“So myself and the Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment are driving that particular policy and hopefully, within the next three to four weeks, that should be done. And we’re working together with the NESG, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, and WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organisation, to also come up with a culture policy to update our culture policy that will be in line with the yearnings and the nuances of today.”
Musawa explained that she had faced challenges stepping into her role saying, “It has been a bit of a challenge, because you know, coming into this, I realised that this particular ministry, we had to start from ground zero. So, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in his avant-garde thinking of trying to diversify away from oil, looked at the area of creative economy and different means of growth. And of course, creative industry is a huge means of growth and a huge real estate for Nigeria.”
She then said, “The whole world, I keep on saying, at the moment is looking to Nigeria for our creativity, and our content, and our art. So, this is time for us as a people to really tap into that because the potential is huge and nothing up until the government of Bola Ahmed Tinubu came and sort of separated the ministry that catered specifically to the creative industry. So no, we can look at it wholeheartedly and put up structures, the unique structures that is needed to allow creatives in the industry to thrive and to be able to gain more value for the nation. So, that part of it has been a struggle, because trying to build something from the very beginning has not been easy.”
“We are ready now to come out and activate a lot of the initiatives that I think will really galvanate not only the ministry, but give young Nigerians and Nigerians generally in the world over a hope and a vision for them to be able to see the vision that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has, and I think great things are going to come out of all of the initiatives that we have,” she added.
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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