The Arts-Muse Fair

By Yunus MC                                   Prof. Andrew Nok, the Commissioner of Education for Kaduna State has challenged Nigerian teen writers to write poems on his scientific feat . Prof. Nok is the winner of the 2009 NLNG Prize for science in Nigeria,  awarded to him for developing a vaccine for the cure of sleeping sickness. Prof. Andrew Nok at the YEF Workshop The Professor of Biochemistry gave the challenge at the opening of a creative writing workshop for teen writers in Kaduna State on 6 th June, 2017 organized by the Yasmin El-Rufai Foundation, a Not-for-profit organization focusing on literary creativity and women literacy programmes. The Foundation which is a brainchild of the wife of the governor of Kaduna State, Hajiya Hadiza Isma El-Rufai was established in memory of her late daughter, Yasmin. Prof. Nok who pledged his support for the Foundation expressed his happiness for being amidst student-writers as well as seeing his former student

It was a feast of delicious poetry last Saturday at the weekly meeting of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA)   Niger State chapter when the Writers’ group hosted a teen writer from Himma International College, Minna. Zainab Salihu, 17, read her deeply reflective poems with a trenchant voice to the admiration of ANA members.   Prior to her reading at the ANA meeting, her mentor, Mr. Yunusa MC had read her poem entitled ‘ Luck is a fool' at a previous meeting which sparked a wild debate over the deftly worded poem that touched on a highly political theme. This earned her an invitation to come and read her poems to ANA members at the request of Mr. Nurdin Busari the CEO of Amab Books, with a pledge to publish her if she could justify that the writings are original to her. Zainab Salihu at her ANA Niger Reading Well, she came, she read and she won a publishing contract with Amab Books! Upon reciting  only four poems from her collection, she won membe

I would like to share my thoughts about nurturing writers with the teenage writers here, but also with the adults here who by choice, by inclination, by official responsibility, are custodians of the teenagers. Custodians of the teenagers by way of offering guides and counsels, by way of programmatically nurturing the young minds towards achieving their dreams, by way of giving formal teaching in schools and other places of learning, by way of providing the incentives, the facilities, and the conducive environment for the imparting and acquisition of knowledge, formal and informal. In talking to the teenagers, I am also talking to their parents, to their teachers, to officials of education ministry, and to politicians who must take an interest in the growth and development of the tender minds.             Talking about teenagers is talking about the future. It is precisely the idea of the future that occupied my mind as I thought of writing this address. It is indeed the r