Denja Abdullahi is the President of the Association of Nigerian Authors  (ANA), an award winning poet, playwright, literary essayist and cultural technocrat. In this interview with ABDULHAFEEZ T. OYEWOLE, he speaks on the state of ANA land as well as his position on the comparison of the writers' body with the trendy Arts and Book Festivals in the country.

It was a donation through allocation by Mamman Jiya Vatsa, the then Minister of the FCT, in 1985 during the ANA Convention that year which Vatsa hosted in Abuja. The land was 60.9 hectares at the time he gave it.

The reduction in size of the land is nothing new and not a news as some persons are trying to paint it to achieve political ends. It was revoked by El Rufai when he was FCT Minister between 2001-2003 and when ANA put up campaign against that, it was returned; short of some hectares, making it 57.6 hectares. There is a letter to that effect from the FCT. 

Since then till 2012/2013, nothing was done on the land until the Remi Raji period when ANA entered into an MOU with KMVL to develop the land. That was after the court case of ANA with Home Securities Ltd who took ANA to court for breach of contract was decided in ANA's favour. Remember the Okediran exco in which I was General Secretary in 2008 terminated the purported contract entered into in 2001 by ANA with Home Securities by the Olu Obafemi exco.

When KMVL approached the FCT authorities in 2012/ 2013 to verify the state of the land before taking full possession in preparations for development to commence, it was discovered that the size has been reduced to 36.5 hectares. The FCT authorities apparently had allocated parts of the land for other usages and to other persons as explained by the developer. Any body can walk into the land office of the FCT to verify this. ANA members have been told about these developments from year to year at conventions, so there is nothing new about it.

The remaining hectares formed the premise of the contracted or MOU signed by ANA with KMVL in 2013 before the advent of my tenure as President and my administration has not entered into any new contract; we are implementing what we met on ground. 

My administration was the first to take ANA members to the land site in 2016 and no single block was laid on that land until 2017 when actual constructions started and now at about 60% gone.

None of the constructions are completed yet. We are building a 500 seater conference centre, offices, malls etc., 50 one bedroom hotel apartment in double wings four blocks and five 2 bedroom writers' residency with swimming pool. These are features contained in the subsisting MOU with the developer signed in 2013.

We had planned to commission at least the conference centre and 2 blocks of the hotel apartments before now with deadline given by us to the developer but sadly the developer has not been able to meet up for myriad of reasons he tendered. But you should recall that the ANA national headquarters effectively moved to Abuja in March 2017 with the completion of the red brick building on the land we have been using as our temporary secretariat.

However, I intend to by September take the media and ANA stakeholders on tour of the project site so that we will all be on the same page on the state of the project;  more so when some persons because of the forthcoming elections have started to politicise the ANA land matter. 

I knew the state of the land before I became president and I knew what I did to fast track the developments we are seeing there now and I will surely signpost the state at which I will leave it for the next executive to continue with.

It will solve finally the perennial problem of lack of fund to run the Association. It will be the home and face of the Association. Income will be generated from the rents that will accrue from the structures which can then be devolved to run programmes in the various chapters of the Association and at the national level. There are lots to benefit by the Association.

Convention preparations are in top gear. LOC has been inaugurated in June and hosting facilities have been inspected. The keynote speaker has been unveiled which is Prof E. E. Sule of IBB University, Lapai. 

As the days roll on, we will give more updates on the convention preparations.

I dream of an ANA that will break new grounds and that will be reinforced with many projects and programmes in our strategic plan (2017-2022) that are yet to be executed. More importantly, I dream of a financially solvent ANA that we will be proud of.

ANA is a complete Association with myriads of projects and programmes spread across Nigeria and which happen at different times of the year. Those Arts and Book Festivals are mere one-off events held each year. ANA convention is strictly a meeting of ANA members to review their activities within an outgoing year. It is within it we do have our AGM. The set up is different yet we do have books on display, drama, performance poetry and even panel discussions which appear to be the fad now. May I ask what happens after all those razzmataz at those book festivals? ANA goes beyond the glamour and uppity literary facade to do enduring literary projects in communities across the country. ANA award respected  prizes, publishes an annual journal where young writers are regularly featured and play all sorts of literary agency roles for its members and others. 

The comparison some persons are making to denigrate the Association that made most of them and gave them platforms to be known as writers in Nigeria and beyond is uncalled for. ANA as it is built and run will endure and would definitely outlive some of these book and arts festivals it is being compared negatively to. Some of those behind the book and arts festivals being extolled to high heaven cut their teeth in literary organisation in ANA. It is like an apprentice that learnt from a master turning round to look down on the master that taught him.

ANA has never felt threatened by any books and arts festival, some of us even participate in them. We cannot all have the same product for the market or else the market will lack variety. ANA will run its programmes and evolve in its operations as the years demand. ANA will not do itself well by abandoning its fundamentals to follow the fadish. In the recent past, some of these fadish literary and book festivals have risen and died. I need not mention them, everyone knows them. ANA will always be there and will never die.

I will rest from active service to the Association to face my career and other personal self-development ventures I have been neglecting. I will still be writing and enter into a redefinition of purpose of some sorts.