Musawa, Ministering Culture of shame

To be a sorcerer or witch is not as easy as many people think. You certainly need initiation, some with rituals of telling consequences and benefits. It’s a tough journey to find anyone who knows it all, meaning what you don’t know, you don’t know.

So knowledge is knowledge, particularly in your area of expertise, so when confronted with seeking a solution and looking for a way out of difficult situations, humble yourself and request to be well guided.

Ignorance is ignorance, QED!. And let me add quickly that there are no excuses to when, why, and how anyone failed in a given assignment or job.

Having made these critical observations, it is important that we take a careful look at the whole shame brought to Nigerian culture by the Minister of Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy, Hannatu Musa Musawa since her appointment about eight months ago. Unknown to the many Jacks and Jills in Nigeria cultural and creative industry, the pervading ignorance that this minister who allegedly claimed to be ” a youth Corper” and also a minister has confounded all known logic and has thrown the prospects of the culture as new economy into jeopardy.

How? Mrs Hannatu Musa Musawa alleged infractions, against the National Youth Service Corp Act to which the Nigerian Bar Association section on Public Interest and Development law has sought judicial prosecution and punishment, has brought the new ministry into public spat and set back to industry players who had prayed for peace and harmony in harnessing the various gains in the sector. Instead of peace and speed in achieving the culture derivables as directed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Musawa by either acts of commission or omission has set the culture ministry in bad light, with public opinion and the BAR Association calling for sack as minister.

As earlier stated, ignorance has no capacity to generate excuse, so what you don’t know, you don’t know, period. For a long time, we have not found it expedient to interrogate the consequences of infractions by those who without requisite experience to run a scientific and dynamic sector such as culture and the arts economy.

At the coming of this administration, the cases of Betty Edu and Hannatu Musa Musawa have distracted this government to no end and added to the many unexplainable setbacks, possibly casting the government in bad light despite the obvious steps to changing the narratives of governance with people centric expectations.

But again, it could be seen that experience is from far from Musawa’s desperation to live up to expectation as she unveiled directorates as new agencies without legal backing or presidential affirmation. We heard she is an oil and gas economy lawyer! And we wonder, what a lawyer!

Did the head of service of federation or the focal permanent secretary in ministries of arts, culture, and creative economy know that Hannatu Musa Musawa has no right to jump start mere directorates in the National Museum and Monuments to full-fledged agencies, which she again effortlessly announced the appointments of their substantive Director Generals without qualms.

The two “arrangee “agencies,” the National War Museum, located in Amafor, Umuahia, Abia state, and National Institute of Archaeology and Museum studies, located in jos, Plateau state, are domiciled under the octopus National Museum and Monuments, a full fledged agency of government, funded through appropriation by the national assembly to manage the collection, documentation, conservation and preservation of national heritage and cultural property.

It is still beyond understanding how mere departments or directorrates under government agency are given authoritative legislative wings to blossom into full agencies by the ” Honourable Minister.”” And you ask, where would Madam Hannatu get the funds to run them, particularly now that we are in dire economic famine., with payment of salaries late in coming?

Nigeria is a country where strange things happen, and hardly do we follow extant regulations. There may be no issues with the minister toying with the idea of unbundling national museum and monument , but the stakeholders must be carried along to determine such protocols and to ignore the input of Nigerians, represented by duly elected members of the National Assembly is again beyond pedestrian excuses or ignorance. It’s an arrogant disposition by Minister Hannatu Musa Musawa, the type Betta Edu exhibited to her undoing.

Since the intention is not to bore you with the consequences of infractions by our new ladies in public service , , it is of a grave concern that those who are saddled with managing our cultural arts economy may be likened to Pharaoh’s magicians.

Musawa may sound like a magician, but the laws of the Federation of Nigeria are not magic. Hannatu Musa Musawa is not the president, federal Republic of Nigeria!

Mrs Musawa is certainly a bad market for Culture sector and since our way of life is far apart from her dramatic effontry to rewrite the rules of engagement in governance, then she will need to give way for those who are sane, humble and circumspect enough to deliver Nigeria cultural goldmine without unnecessary controversy.

There are interesting times ahead of us in the Arts, culture and creative ministry and if you must keep your heart in good stead, learn to pray for the peace of the cultural tourism sector because Musawa as a magician have come to congure abracadabra .

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