Poetic Workshop Charts New Path for Nigerian Storytellers at Naija Poetry Fest Community

LAGOS — Every society carries memories. Some are celebrated in songs, monuments, and festivals. Others are hidden beneath silence, buried in collective pain, waiting for someone brave enough to excavate them.

That was the premise of a charged poetic workshop session held for the Naija Poetry Fest Community, where multi-award winning author, social advocate and United States Agency for Global Media ChangeMaker Award Recipient, Lady E Ejiro Umukoro, challenged writers, poets, dramatists, filmmakers, and artists to see themselves beyond entertainers.

“Writers, poets, storytellers, dramatists, filmmakers, and artists are not merely creators of entertainment. They are custodians of memory, architects of meaning, and engineers of culture,” Lady Ejiro told the packed session.

Titled “Scars, Algorithms and Ancestors: You Are a Cultural Engineer”, the 60-minute workshop introduced a four-part framework for transformative storytelling: Scars, Algorithms, Ancestors, and Cultural Engineering. Together, Lady Ejiro argued, they form the blueprint for understanding how stories shape societies and how creative people can influence the future.

Scars: The Data of Human Experience

Lady Ejiro began by redefining a word many avoid. “When we hear the word scar, we often think of wounds. But scars are more than wounds. They are records. They are evidence that something happened. A scar is memory etched into flesh, emotion, history, or identity.”

She listed the scars that mark Nigeria and the world: the memory of war, the pain of discrimination, the trauma of poverty, the grief of displacement, the silence after violence.

“The Holocaust left scars on Jewish memory. The Transatlantic and Arab slave trade left scars on Africa. The Nigerian Civil War left scars on generations of Nigerians. Kidnappings, insecurity, corruption, and social injustice continue to create fresh scars in our society today.”

Her charge to writers was direct: “As writers, our responsibility is to identify these scars and ask: What happened? Who was affected? What lessons remain hidden beneath the wound? Scars are not merely pain. They are archives. They are data. They are the memory of impact and survival.”

Algorithms: The Rules Hidden Beneath Reality

The session then shifted to systems. “An algorithm is often associated with technology. But long before computers existed, human societies operated on algorithms. An algorithm is simply a pattern. A sequence. A rule. An invisible system that determines outcomes.”

Lady Ejiro gave examples rooted in daily Nigerian life: “If people are denied opportunities, poverty grows. If corruption is rewarded, corruption spreads. If education is neglected, ignorance multiplies. These are social algorithms. Every society operates according to visible and invisible rules.”

She urged artists to move beyond description. “Writers must learn to identify them. Because beneath every social problem lies an algorithm sustaining it. The task of the artist is not merely to describe the wound. The task is to reveal the mechanism behind the wound. To expose the code. To challenge the logic. To rewrite the script.”

Ancestors: The Source Code of Identity

The third pillar centered on heritage. “Ancestors are not merely those who came before us. They are our source code. They are repositories of memory, values, wisdom, and worldview.”

Drawing parallels between ancient and modern knowledge systems, Lady Ejiro said: “Before there were universities, there were elders. Before there were databases, there were griots. Before there were cloud servers, there were oral traditions.”

She catalogued how ancestors encoded wisdom: in proverbs, folktales, songs, rituals, festivals, names, and symbols. “They understood sustainability before climate science. They practiced community before modern social theory. They mastered memory before digital storage. To consult the ancestors is not to live in the past. It is to understand the foundation upon which the future must stand. A tree without roots cannot survive a storm. Likewise, a culture disconnected from its origins becomes vulnerable to erasure.”

Cultural Engineering: Designing Human Possibility

The final concept reframed “social engineering” from a cybercrime term to a creative responsibility. “Social engineering is often discussed negatively. But culture itself is a product of engineering. Every norm. Every belief. Every tradition. Every value. Every aspiration. Was designed, reinforced, or transmitted by someone.”

Lady Ejiro defined cultural engineering as “the deliberate shaping of how people think, feel, behave, and imagine their future.” She added: “Every poem does this. Every novel does this. Every song does this. Every film does this. The question is not whether culture is being engineered. The question is: Who is engineering it? And toward what end? The writer is a cultural engineer. The poet is a cultural engineer. The storyteller is a cultural engineer. Your words influence consciousness. Your stories influence identity. Your imagination influences possibility.”

The Formula

Lady Ejiro distilled the framework into a formula for creators seeking impact:
Scars = Data — The memory of impact and survival.
Algorithms = Rules — The invisible logic that produces outcomes.
Ancestors = Source Code — Inherited wisdom, values, and identity.
Cultural Engineering = Design — The intentional shaping of thought, emotion, and behavior.
“When these four elements converge, transformative storytelling emerges,” she said using the impactful success of her DISTORTION novels, which has sparked social changes such as the abolition of the Osu caste system in Imo State – a theme her novel, DISTORTION, tackled head-on.

Beyond Pain: Reimagining Nigeria’s Narrative

A critical part of the workshop addressed the limits of trauma-based storytelling. “For decades, much of our storytelling has revolved around struggle. Corruption. Poverty. Conflict. Migration. Pain. These stories matter. But they cannot be the only stories we tell. A nation cannot build its future solely through the documentation of suffering.”

She posed a series of questions to the room: “What comes after the pain? What comes after Boko Haram? What comes after #EndSARS? What comes after Japa? What comes after survival?”

Her answer: imagination. “The next frontier is imagination. The next frontier is possibility. The next frontier is African futurism. Climate fiction. Tech poetry. Virtual reality theatre. Smart-city romances. Digitized folklore. Indigenous innovation. The future belongs to those who can carry their heritage into tomorrow.”

If Culture Lives Only in Museums, It Is Dying

Lady Ejiro warned against preservation without innovation. “A culture preserved only in glass cases is already fading. A culture encoded in technology survives.”

She painted a picture of the future: “Imagine: Yoruba proverbs in Artificial Intelligence. Benin history in Virtual Reality. Urhobo folklore as animated films. Isoko mythology in gaming worlds. Hausa storytelling through immersive digital experiences. This is cultural engineering. This is how ancient wisdom becomes future relevance.”

Practical Exercise for Writers

Before closing, Lady Ejiro gave participants three exercises:
Exercise One: Map Your Scars — “Write down three experiences that hurt you. For each experience, ask: What happened? What lesson emerged? What rule did I learn from it? That becomes your dataset.”

Exercise Two: Consult Your Ancestors — “Before beginning your next creative project, ask: ‘What value did my people hold that this story serves?’ If the story serves only the self, it may disappear. If it serves the community, it may endure.”

Exercise Three: Rewrite the Algorithm — “Identify one harmful belief, system, or tradition. Ask: Why does it persist? Who benefits from it? What alternative narrative can replace it? Then write that story.”

The Power of Storytelling

Umukoro grounded the theory in her own work. “Stories have changed laws. Stories have changed nations. Stories have changed history. While writing the DISTORTION Series, I examined the various distortions embedded within Nigerian society. One of those distortions was the Osu/Ohu caste system in Eastern Nigeria. The work moved beyond literature into advocacy. Conversations became campaigns. Campaigns became public discourse. Public discourse inspired action. Entire communities began questioning inherited discrimination. This is the power of storytelling. This is cultural engineering. This is what happens when scars become data, wisdom becomes strategy, and stories become instruments of transformation.”

Final Charge to Every Griot

She ended with a call that drew applause. “A poem hidden in a drawer is like crude oil buried beneath the earth. Both are wasted resources. Nigeria cannot afford wasted stories. Nigeria cannot afford wasted imagination. Nigeria cannot afford wasted writers.”

“The future will not merely be governed by politicians. It will be shaped by ideas. And ideas are carried by stories. Therefore, ask yourself: What story has not yet been written that only you can tell? What scar are you uniquely positioned to heal? What algorithm are you prepared to challenge? What ancestral wisdom are you ready to preserve? What future are you courageous enough to imagine?”

“Because in the end, you are not merely a writer. You are not merely a poet. You are not merely a storyteller. You are a Cultural Engineer.”

The Naija Poetry Fest Community session closed with participants ordering copies of the #DISTORTIONseries as well as mapping their own “scars-to-data” notes, signaling a shift from performance to purpose in Nigeria’s literary space.