BY IKENNA ASOMBA

Mr. Emenike Johnson is a 24-year-old final year student of Mass Communication in one of the nation’s universities. Right from  childhood, he has had this flair and passion for writing. He has the innate potential and skills that make a good writer.

Johnson has oftentimes professed his dream of becoming one of the country’s great writers like late literary icon, Prof. Chinua Achebe; Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka; novelist Elechi Amadi, poet and playwright, John Pepper Clark, and poet Christopher Okigbo; playright, Ola Rotimi, Chimamanda Adichie, and others who have written their names in gold in the literary world.

Unfortunately for Johnson who has done no fewer than 10 works on fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry, he is yet to publish any. His thought is that someday, may be in the near future, a big corporate organisation or wealthy individual will discover him and sponsor the publishing of his creative works.

Young writers who attended the NOAH’s ARK Creative Safari event.

Having spent four years in the university and developed such beautiful ideas without taking them to the final consumers – the readers, Johnson’s chances of making impact in the knowledge-based economy, and at the same time redeeming himself from the league of unemployed graduates after his graduation, becomes slim.

There are innumerable teenagers and youths out there, who like Johnson, are good creative writers and artists, but who also live with the same perception. They wait for the “right” time which seems not to come and thus have most of their creative works lost by omission or commission.

It is against this backdrop that in commemoration of its 5thAnniversary, Noah’s Ark Communications Limited, a leading advertising agency in the country, last Thursday, for the first time, brought together notable writers, publishers, authors, journalists, broadcasters, public relations and advertising experts, artists, comedians, photographers and academics at Tera Kulture, Victoria Island, Lagos, in order to sensitize young writers and artists on how they could tap into their creative talents while in school for self development.

Tagged Creative Safari, the event had two sessions where names like Jumoke Verissimo, author and winner of Carlos Idize Ahmad Award; Kelechi Amadi Obi, photographer and publisher of Mania Magazines; Itah Hozaife, Chief Executive Officer of Ink Marks Limited; Sesan Adeniji, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of My Streetz Media; Nnamdi Ndu of CHINI Productions; Tosin Martins, an artist and others, took turns to enlighten the young writers and artists on how they could utilise their God-given creative potentials, thereby becoming productive and worthy ambassadors of their parents and the nation at large.

In his contributions, Nnamdi Ndu, while decrying the growing unemployment rate in the country, averred that young writers should no longer wait for the so-called big sponsors to come and sponsor their creative works, but to put it together in print, no matter how small, in order to derive intellectual and economic satisfaction.

“It has been discovered that most corporate organisations and wealthy individuals in the country today, do not encourage the creativity of young writers and upcoming artists by means of sponsorship.”

They only sponsor writers and artists who are already made, to the detriment of the young artists and writers, who may have better creative works.