Develop Creative Economy Now, Not Tomorrow, UK Expert Tells Nigerian Governors

The Pro Vice-Chancellor for Partnerships and Engagement astatine the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), United Kingdom, Professor Lyndsay Duthie, has urged Nigerian policymakers to enactment with urgency successful processing the country’s originative economy, stressing that the accidental is nary longer successful the aboriginal but successful the present.

Speaking during a courtesy sojourn to the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) office successful Abuja, Prof. Duthie, a seasoned tv shaper with credits spanning the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky, said Nigeria’s youthful vigor and taste endowment marque it a imaginable planetary powerhouse if decently harnessed.

“The originative system is not tomorrow’s accidental – it is today’s,” she declared, drafting from Britain’s acquisition wherever the originative industries contributed £124.6bn to the UK system successful 2022.

According to a connection by the Director, Media and Strategic Communications of NGF, Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi, Prof. Duthie, who had days earlier delivered a keynote astatine the National Council for Arts and Culture’s Creative Economy Summit successful Enugu, argued that civilization positive creativity translates into economical power.

She stressed that nations worldwide present deploy “soft power” done art, film, and euphony to power perceptions and thrust exports.

On his part, Director General of the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), Obi Asika, described the concern with the NGF and UCA arsenic groundbreaking.

“We are delighted to physique this inaugural with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, bringing our concern with the University for the Creative Arts into state-level engagement. It volition thrust capableness building, skills improvement and planetary opportunities for Nigerians opening with the subnationals,” Asika said.

Welcoming the UCA delegation, NGF Director-General, Dr. Abdulateef Shittu, described the engagement arsenic some timely and significant, adding that governors are committed to gathering the originative assemblage arsenic a instrumentality for diversification and younker empowerment.

“Your sojourn is some timely and important arsenic Nigeria positions the originative system arsenic a cardinal pillar of economical diversification and younker empowerment,” Shittu said.

He explained that the NGF is moving with the NCAC and the Federal Ministry of Art, Culture and the Creative Economy to fortify taste infrastructure, grow skills grooming and integrate originative endeavor into state-level strategies.

According to him, Nigeria’s talents already task the nation’s taste power globally, but sustained concern and planetary partnerships are needed to standard impact.

“With structured investment, capacity-building and planetary collaborations, this imaginable tin beryllium transformed into sustainable prosperity,” helium said.

Shittu assured Prof. Duthie of the NGF’s readiness to spouse with UCA connected cognition speech and endowment development.

“Building organization partnerships with globally recognised institutions specified arsenic yours volition importantly accelerate the maturation of Nigeria’s originative economy,” helium affirmed.

The visit, helium noted, was much than symbolic but a measurement toward aligning state-level ambition with global expertise.