ANA / Prof Fawehinmi Writers Dialogue: The Day the Written Craft Took Centre Stage

You could hear it before you saw it. Not drums. Not chants. The sound of bus tires on gravel, climbing the Mpape hills toward Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village.

It was 1:00 PM, Saturday, April 25, 2026. And for once, a university did not send a banner to a literary event. It sent students.

The buses said Yakubu Gowon University. The order came from Vice Chancellor Prof. Hakeem Babatunde Fawehinmi. That was the first line of the story the Association of Nigerian Authors, Abuja Chapter, was about to write. Theme: The Role of Educational Institutions in Fostering Human Progress Through the Written Craft. Translation: Nigeria is tired of framing certificates and starving libraries.

Arc. Chukwudi Eze, FANA, Chairman of ANA Abuja, did not waste time with pleasantries. He stepped up and named the enemy.

“At ANA Abuja, we remain committed to promoting a culture of reading, encouraging emerging voices, and sustaining literature as a vehicle for national and global development,” he said. “This platform continues to serve as a meeting point where ideas are exchanged, talents are discovered, and the future of our literary and intellectual heritage is actively shaped.”

The subtext hung in the dry Mpape air. Schools have become warehouses for examination numbers. ANA Abuja came to turn them back into workshops for human beings.

Then a medical doctor took the microphone and defended the humanities better than most English professors ever have.

Prof. Fawehinmi looked at a room full of writers, scientists, teenagers, and told them the truth no syllabus admits. Writing is not a department. It is a democracy.

“Writing is a fundamental competency for all professions,” he said. “Science. Engineering. Medicine.”

He called out the national addiction to “certificate celebration” while libraries rust and reading dies. He promised UniAbuja would rebuild its library, archive Achebe and Soyinka, and chase “Unity and Scholarship” with books, not slogans. Then he extended a formal partnership with ANA Abuja. Festivals. Competitions. Reading programs.

“A well-crafted sentence has the power to change the world,” he said.

Arc. Eze answered him the only way that mattered. He announced a literary prize in Prof. Fawehinmi’s honour. Not for his grammar. For his buses. For understanding that access is a form of literature.

Lady Ejiro Umukoro held the day together. Award-winning author. Founder of LightRay! Media, Books, and Literary Society. She turned her moderator’s chair into a command center and called up the panel: Prof. Udenta O. Udenta, Prof. Hauwa Imam, Prof. Vicky Sylvester.

Prof. Udenta did not come to coddle. He called AI a “miracle that mimics everything” and warned of “cognitive deficiency.” The antidote, he said, was embarrassingly simple. Physical books. Hard work. “Advanced nations are returning to it to consolidate the human world,” he said. “We abandoned it and called the shortcut intelligence.”

He praised Prof. Fawehinmi’s open-door policy and “competence over friendship” as the architecture of real progress. Prof. Sylvester argued that storytelling is infrastructure. Prof. Imam said cultural identity dies when it is not written down.

The room was no longer an audience. It was a laboratory as the future walked in wearing matching dresses.

Taiwo Mary and Kehinde Martha Adelaja. 13 years old. Twin authors. They handed the VC their second published books. The Smart Girl. The Unfortunate Woman. They had met Obasanjo before. On Saturday they met the reason ANA’s mentorship exists. Proof that when you water talent instead of just testing it, it publishes at 13.

The open mic section dropped all pretense of a “programme.” It became evidence.

Osinu Queenchristabel performed Integrity like a subpoena. Frances Keju reminded everyone that It Is Borrowed (Our Lives). Raheela Ray Mmahi, known as Raywrite, gave Life with NEPA and the crowd laughed the way people laugh before they organize.

Ifeanyi Onyinye took the overall win. But the roll call mattered more: Ohere Naomi, Ohiani Rodiyatulallah, Francis, Osino Queen-Christabel, Emmanuella Adeniyi-Dabnak from NTIC, Marvelous Prospect Int’l Academy, Flourish Academy, Nigerian Turkish American Academy. Certificates in literacy excellence followed. Cash prizes in poetry and prose. The message was blunt. Nigeria’s next lawmakers might be the teenagers who just won an open mic.

The Q&A stripped the event for parts.

“What is one mistake freshers make?”
“Is JAMB cut-off the only gate?”
“What do we do about lecturers who sell grades?”

Prof. Fawehinmi answered. So did Prof. Udenta, Prof. Sylvester, Arc. Eze. No consultant spoke. No communiqué was promised. The VC talked about merit, access, and institutional integrity like a man who had already put buses on the road.

Past 3:00 PM, there was refreshment. Light music. But the real closing statement came from Lady Ejiro in her post-event interview.

“The integrity of society hinges on the quality of its educators,” she said. “Unqualified personnel in academic institutions cause a disservice to society. Developing future leaders requires merit-based education and a nurturing environment to foster critical thinking.”

She said sophisticated societies are not built by accident. They are mentored into existence.

Here is what happened at Mamman Vatsa Writers’ Village.

A VC showed up with students, not just speeches. A 13-year-old handed him a book, not a request for a selfie. Professors said “read physical books” out loud in 2026. Teenagers performed power outages and exam malpractice and were rewarded for telling the truth.

ANA Abuja did not host a dialogue. It staged a reclamation. For years Nigeria has printed graduates who can recite but cannot write the petition that will fix their road. On Saturday, the library fought back.

The buses rolled down the hill that evening. The students inside carried more than refreshments. They carried a new definition of arrival: Certificates get you into the room. Writing tells the room what to build.

And on April 25, 2026, in Mpape, the room started taking notes.