I am ready to move ANA from a creative indulgence to a creative industry-Ofili
An aspirant for the presidential position of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) national elections, Chike Ofili, has reiterated his commitment to drive the association from a creative indulgence to a creative industry after the election scheduled for October 31- November 2.
Ofili, who disclosed this in an interview on Thursday, stated that his motivation for contesting for the presidential position is to be the solution to problems overwhelming the association, thereby initiating a solution focused leadership.
He said the association which embodies professionals from different fields needs to collaborate with all writers in order to solve problems plaguing the nation through their works.
Ofili, who joined the Lagos chapter of ANA in 1995, with his first publication titled: “Our spoken ties’’ in 2001, said that his major goal for the association is to ensure that illiteracy is eradicated in Nigeria through the publication of more books and promoting good reading habits amongst Nigerians, pointing out that mass illiteracy endangers the book industry.
He said that “without functional literacy, there will be no writers, no readers, no publishers, no printers, no booksellers, no book buyers, no libraries, and therefore no market, and so, no book industry.
“It will be a return to a pre-literate society that may not even be able to produce quality literature at a time when literature is not available in most of Africa.”
Ofili, who has mapped out his governance agenda on becoming the ANAnational president, added that “we intend to revolutionise and advance ANA higher for good by reconstituting ANA’s leadership model, reconstructing the welfare of the art and craft of writing, celebrating writers and teachers as illuminators.
“Re-orient writers for job and wealth creation, re orient writers for economic well-being by repositioning writing and ANAmembers for job creation, restructuring ANA members and engage in international and Diaspora engagements.”
Elaborating on his five pillars, he detailed that, enthroning a new leadership model that reverses the self-decaying old model from self-centredness to selflessness, defining the character and roles of the bodies of change agents by instituting body of editors, body of evaluators, among others, as part of his vision.
On tackling the issue of plagiarism and piracy in the book industry, he said that ‘’it shall be the duty of ANA’s body of legal defenders to prosecute any offender. It will also see to all legal matters that can get writers and authors into a bad bind and free them from such.’’
Ofili noted that there will be the introduction of ANA E-commerce website to provide writers and authors opportunities to exhibit their works, promote E-books, E-bookshop, E-reading and E-libraries, among others
