Strategic cultural agenda in the season of change (l)

It is also hoped that the new leaders of the National Assembly will take the lessons emanating from the various reactions to their actions with regard to wedging the opportunity presented by the right to the independence of the legislature (that is separation of powers among the ties of government and the necessity to carry their party along in the interest of internal cohesion and internal democracy).
It is time to return to the crucial matter of development dialectics – discourses of expedient agenda for the change programme of the Buhari government. Unless we pull material and ideational resources together, the optimism of transformation built around the new government will amount to an idle wish. I intend in the next two or so columns to examine the opportunities inhering the cultural domain, via the potential of cultural industries for rapid economic diversification for national development.
I take off with the background of Nigeria’s multi-culture as a critical domain for growing the national economy. While it is true that there is a universal human culture on the basis of human descent from a common ancestry, history and environment have, over time, manifested differences in societies, communities and nations. It does transpire that Nigeria is one of the richest nations of the world in terms of its diverse languages, ethnicities and cultures. Rather than its diversification being a source of disunity, the dynamics of history have shown that there has been evolving synthesis of cultures in the Nigerian experience for centuries. This needs to be articulated in the process of locating culture as an instrument of forging security strategy and for transforming the economy.  And these can be perceived from the critical dimensions and components of culture – as institutions (identifiable units of societies with rules and norms governing behaviour) as ideas such as knowledge and beliefs, philosophies, morals, religious and as tangible material products (tangible objects produced by human labour).
All of these components require strengthening to build a national culture. There are two critical areas in this regard; first is the tangible cultural sphere-physical material assets-artefacts, sculpture, archaeology, architecture, paintings, monuments, theatres galleries, cinemas promote national cohesion. These are gifts of the nation’s commonwealth. Secondly, the non-tangible and spiritual domains – intellectual products, storytelling, folklore, oral performance, literature, drama and theatre, books, enlightenment and leisure and the re-enforcement of the core values of society – promote national patriotism and national pride. These requires developing and building the material and technical platforms in leisure institutions, building capacity  by training cadres  with requisite social welfare packages; they will in turn catalyse the building of  the cultural industry in the following areas:
i. Developing skills, propensities, human resources, traditional repertoires for translating into economic output inventively and innovatively.
ii. Planning, forecasting and managing development on the premise of acquired  knowledge through systematic study of society
iii. Providing fund for the production and distribution of  indigenous cinematography- movies (the Nollywood and African Magic, for instance; the richly endowed landscape, the aesthetic delight of sceneries, topographies, the raw spaces for cultural tourism
iv. Empowering the creative industries of  printed books, building  the electronic media of radio and television, and harnessing internet resources for strategic communication    
v. Linking these as entry points to global cultures, especially with regard to influencing and interacting with the bi-lateral and multi-lateral international environment. This is even more important than going cap in hand to beg for alms from the super-powers.
The essential dimensions and objectives of my proposal here for the deployment of cultural strategies for national transformation, including national security will summarise as follows:
We can resolve the challenges of our national security, long after the guns have hushed, especially as it concerns the redemptive and preservative power of core cultural values, morality, integrity, patriotism, identity cohesion, humanising our citizenry by re-assembling the unifying multi-national identities and peoples of the federal republic towards promoting national cohesion and our common inheritance.
We need to, post-haste, recapture and re-affirm the international status, profile and image of Nigeria as a richly endowed nation of diverse cultures, languages, religions ethnicities, turning them to veritable assets rather than liabilities as politicians used to wont to do.
The state has continued to mouth, without lifting a finger at the centre to do it, the need to diversify our economy, our sources of wealth creation and employment creation through revamping our cultural industries.
To do these, concretely, we must provide cultural education that generates patriotic consciousness and spiritual affirmation among our budging and teeming youth who have gone completely ignorant of the rich cultures of our heritage.
If we place our national strategies at availing the masses of the population access to the finest and richest spheres of the nation’s culture, while not closing access to the most valuable and enduring aspects of international (foreign) cultures, we will be offering something tangible to the screaming globalisation out there.