ANA Kano gets new EXCO, visits Emir Sanusi
The president of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Malam Denja Abdullahi has inaugurated the new executives of the association’s Kano branch. The inauguration, which took place on March 30th at the Murtala Muhammad Library Complex, Kano, saw Zahradeen Ibrahim Kallah taking the reins as Chairman.
Prior to the inauguration, ANA Kano took the opportunity to visit the Emir of Kano, His Royal Highness Muhammad Sanusi II, to express their gratitude over his continuous support to the branch and to the development of literature and culture, as well as to seek his blessings for the new EXCO.
During the visit Chairman Kallah introduced the EXCO and said they chose to visit the Emir seeing how much he had supported ANA since his time as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
According to Kallah, when the Emir had been the CBN governor, he had given a grant to ANA Kano to publish a book that would capture various experiences from the country.
This grant led to the publication of an anthology titled Telling Our Stories.
Speaking during the visit, President of ANA, Malam Denja Abdullahi expressed gratitude to the emir for his support, saying that writers are the silent ruminating conscience of the society and are the greatest documentarists and propagators of the living cultural heritage of the society.
“Kano, apart from being a centre of commerce is also renowned for learning; and writers have played their roles in furthering these two great redoubts of Kano,” he said.
He commended the emir for his role in cultural enlightenment of the people saying, “We are also here to identify with the élan, enlightenment, egalitarianism and knowledge-driven panache that you have brought to the sacred duty of the execution of your royal authority. The fruits of your work have started manifesting and we commend you for that.”
The President explained some of the activities the Association undertook; and other schemes they intend to carry out such as promoting indigenous languages and the writing of books projecting the history and culture of Kano. He also explained the plan to organise Kano Literary Week in the near future in which the whole of Kano State will be saturated with writing activities of the state.
On his part, the Emir expressed delight at the visit of the writers saying that the existence of bad writers should not negate the contribution of good ones to the development of societies saying, “Anywhere in the world, writers and intellectuals fight anything that will stop creative thinking and initiative.”
During the inauguration which took place after the visit to the emir, Kallah expressed joy at the opportunity to serve and pledged his commitment and that of his team to moving ANA forward.
Commenting, Chairman of the occasion Professor Habu Mohammed, head of the department of Political Science, Bayero University, Kano, congratulated the new EXCO on their elections and expressed hope that they will work as a team while discharging their duties. The Professor saw ANA as a vehicle of development that promotes literary activities in the country.
The occasion had numerous guests in attendance including distinguished academics and past officials of ANA Kano such as Ado Ahmad Gidan Dabino, Ismail Bala, Badamasi S. Burji and Abdulkadir Badsha Mukhtar.
The evening climaxed with bilingual readings in Hausa and English.