By Fred Akanni
Nigerian independents, Niger Delta Exploration & Production (NDEP) and Pillar Oil Limited have each been awarded the title of ‘Lead Sustainers’ of the Lagos Book and Art Festival.
The annual event is Nigeria’s leading advocacy festival for literacy and the two companies have been the leading and most consistent sponsors for the past 11 years.
NDEP has also contributed severally to the discursive sessions, which populate the weeklong feast of the written word.
“It’s an incredible gesture to have such iconic private sector enterprises support our campaign to rid the nation of ignorance”, says Jahman Anikulapo, programme chairman of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), organisers of LABAF. He was responding to NDEP’s promise to increase its sponsorship for the 2022 edition of the Festival.
The 24th LABAF will run from November 14-20, 2022 at the Freedom Park in Lagos, with the theme Pathways to the Future.
LABAF is a comprehensive, week-long culture picnic that has run annually since September 1999. It features reading sessions, conversations around ‘content and context of books’, art and craft displays, kiddies’ art workshops, Publishers’ Forum, Writers’ Workshops and Book Trek, Book exhibitions, Drama skits, Live music and dance. It is an art festival with high book content.
Among the 15 books up for the curated segment of the festival this year are:
- Abdourahman Waberi: The United States of Africa
- Paul Morland: The Tomorrow’s People: The Future of Humanity in Ten Numbers
- Mo Gawdat: Scary Smart: The Future of Artificial Intelligence & How You Can Save Our World
- Ayodele Arigbabu: Lagos 2060
- Kim Stanley Robinson: New York 2140
- Ian McEwan: Machines Like Me and People Like You
- Jonathan E. Hillman: The Digital Silk Road: China’s Quest to Wire the World and Win the Future
- Ashlee Vance: Elon Musk- Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future Paperback
- James Dale Davidson & Lord William Rees-Mogg: The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age
- Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson: Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty Paperback
- Itse Sagay: All Will Be Well
- Yemi Ogunbiyi: The Road Never Forgets
- Lawson Omokhodion: Powered by Poverty
- Muyiwa Kayode: Brand Nation
