Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo played host to some Kannywood stars at the Presidential villa in Abuja on wednesday.
The delegation made up of notable artistes, musicians, entertainers and creatives from the Northern part of the country paid a courtesy call on the Vice President with commendation for the administration while also tabling their requests to further spur their industry.
They came under the auspices of a group named 13 x 13 Awareness Group led by Kannywood personalities, such as Alhaji Dauda Adamu Rarara, its President and Yakubu Mohammed, spokesperson, among several others.
During the meeting, the Kannywood group delivered a special song filled with commendation for the work and accomplishments, while also chorusing that Prof. Osinbajo is together with “Baba Buhari.”
The song was led by Yusuf Haruna, a.k.a Baban Chinedu, a Muslim actor who features as an Igbo character in films.
The lyrics of the song sang in Hausa is translated into English thus:
“Youths, everyone, come out, from the cities to the rural areas, let’s do Osinbajo and Baba Buhari.
“In the past, we brought you this song, now we have come with the song again, Osinbajo and Baba Buahri. Buhari is fixing the country for us”
The Kannywood actors praised the leadership, dedication and wisdom of the Buhari-Osinbajo administration.
While receiving the delegation, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, stated that a country’s most important resource is its human resources, and Nigeria must place a premium on this because its talents are the country’s biggest export and significant investment.
Emphasising on the need to pay more attention to the country’s human resources, the Vice President noted that Nigeria’s creative sector is one of the most vibrant anywhere, observing that Nigeria’s impressive array of talents across the creative sector needs to be showcased more to the world.
Pointing out some of members of the delegation whose works he had encountered such as veteran Kannywood actor, Rabiu Rikadawa, among others, the VP said, “I think one of the best things that our country has is talent, very solid talent. Sometimes we make the mistake of not exhibiting our talents enough, not showing off our talents enough and it’s a big mistake because this is our best resource.”
He stated that some countries do not have any mineral resource, but their best export is their human resource, adding that the creative sector is a very powerful tool of influence in any nation, and can be used effectively to advance social causes and nation building.
According to the VP “when you look at our country, here is a fantastic country, with talents from every corner, but it can also be a place where people are just fighting, quarrelling over nothing; whereas we can bring, with the power of what you are doing, we can bring people together, we can bring all our people together.
“If you look at sports, if you look at entertainment, they can bring people together. And we must use it to bring our people together, we must use this talent to bring our people together.”
“I like the film industry. I enjoy comedy, I enjoy songs in whatever language, and I’m sure there are so many who are interested. Even sometimes looking at a video when you don’t even speak the language, you look at a video you’ll laugh because you know that it is funny.
“So, sometimes it does not matter the language in which it is delivered, people will laugh so long as it is funny. I think that you have a very strong weapon – the creative industry, has a very strong weapon – drama, music, comedy, these are very powerful and you can use them to do so many things and we must use it to do so many things.
“The usefulness of your talent is not just for a small set of people, but it is for everybody because your contributions are very important,” the VP stated.
