Politics
Hannatu Musa, Minister of Tourism, disclosed this at the National Theatre Kano Creative Summit 2026, where she challenged creative practitioners in Northern Nigeria to take ownership of their works, strengthen their business structures and leverage intellectual property to generate sustainable incomes.
The two-day summit, which ends Friday, in Kano, is themed “Beyond Lagos: Unlocking Northern Nigeria’s Creative Economy.”
Musa said Kano’s centuries-old creative traditions demonstrated that the city had operated a vibrant creative economy long before the concept became part of formal economic policy.
She cited Kano’s dyeing pits, leatherwork, weaving, embroidery, blacksmithing, traditional performances and Kannywood film industry as creative assets capable of generating significant economic value if properly organised and commercialised.
“Kano had a creative economy long before anyone gave the name creative economy to the industry,” she said.
The minister said Kannywood had developed a significant international audience, reaching Hausa-speaking communities across West Africa and audiences in other parts of the world.
She argued that the contribution of Kannywood should be recognised as an important part of Nigeria’s global film industry alongside Nollywood.
Musa also highlighted Kano’s contribution to literature, noting that women in the city had written, printed and sold novels in local markets as far back as 1958, while artists associated with the Zaria Art Society contributed to the development of modern Nigerian art.
She said the appointment of Ali Nuhu, a prominent Kannywood actor and filmmaker, to head the Nigerian Film Corporation demonstrated the Federal Government’s effort to bring practitioners from the creative industry into institutional leadership.
Musa also pointed to UNESCO’s inscription of the Durbar in Kano on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2024 as international recognition of the depth of the city’s cultural heritage.
According to her, the recognition encompasses skills and practices associated with the Durbar, including leatherwork, weaving, dyeing, embroidery, blacksmithing, horse preparation and drumming.
She said the recognition placed a responsibility on government and communities to ensure that such knowledge and skills were transferred to younger generations.
Musa, however, identified weak commercial structures, inadequate ownership systems and limited market access as major constraints preventing creative practitioners from benefiting fully from their work.
“Talent has never been a problem here,” she said, stressing that the challenge was to ensure that creative work generated sufficient income to make it attractive to younger generations.
She said many traditional craft practitioners were abandoning their occupations because they could no longer earn enough from them to sustain their livelihoods.
Musa said similar challenges affected contemporary creative industries, where films could be copied and distributed before producers recovered their investment, while musicians often struggled to earn commensurate income from the use of their works.
“What is missing is rarely talent. It is ownership, business structure, and a way into the market and directly into the money,” she said.
She said the Federal Government was responding through its creative economy programmes, including an eight-point plan and Destination 2030, which targets two million jobs in the creative industry by 2030.
Musa said the government had also begun working with the National Bureau of Statistics to improve data collection and measurement across the creative economy, stressing the need for reliable statistics to guide investment and policy decisions.
She disclosed that the fashion industry alone employs more than four million Nigerians and grew by about 16 percent annually between 2018 and 2022.
The minister urged creative practitioners to treat their activities as businesses by keeping proper financial records, separating personal and business finances and understanding the cost of their projects.
She also advised artists, filmmakers, performers and other practitioners to register their works, understand contracts before signing them and protect their copyrights.
Musa said intellectual property should be treated as an economic asset capable of generating income through licensing and other commercial arrangements.
She encouraged practitioners to form associations, guilds and other collective structures to improve their bargaining power.
“Our elders say one hand cannot lift a thatch roof. A collective or a guild can negotiate terms that no single artist can,” she said.
Musa said the Federal Government needed stronger feedback from creative practitioners to develop policies that addressed the realities of the industry.
She said the National Theatre’s decision to take its creative summit to Kano represented part of a broader effort to ensure that opportunities in Nigeria’s creative economy were not concentrated in Lagos and Abuja.
Musa urged young creatives in Kano and across Northern Nigeria to build businesses around their skills and ensure that the next generation could see sustainable livelihoods in the region’s cultural and creative industries.
She said the broader objective of Destination 2030 was to build a national creative economy in which communities across the North, South, East and West could contribute to job creation, income generation and the strengthening of Nigeria’s global cultural identity.
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