FROM NATIONAL THEATRE TO NATIONAL HOTEL? UNENDING CONTROVERSY OVER ICONIC EDIFICE

National Theatre

The alleged plan to turn the National Theatre into a five-star hotel is causing disquiet in the arts and culture sector

In the beginning
DURING an interaction with Arts editors in Lagos last December, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Orientation, Edem Duke, was asked for an update on the National Theatre. “The National Theatre is not a small property, it’s a massive edifice and government has its way of working so your desire and enthusiasm must be moderated by due process,” he began in response to the question.

“Having identified that, I set up a committee which was to look at intervention in the National Theatre to afford its refurbishment and to broaden its offerings; to make it a commercially viable entity whilst still retaining its iconic place in the heritage landscape of the country. The due process in government is that the public assets of government are jointly superintended by several other ministries. So, the due process is that you must get the Ministry of Lands and Housing, Ministry of Works, the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, which is the most important mandate agency in all of this, the Office of the Surveyor General, Lagos State Government, the Ministry, the National Theatre, all in concert. If one party decided that this is not going to happen, it can throw up issues that can make us perpetually on the drawing board. But happily, all these parties have agreed that intervention in the National Theatre is a matter of urgent national interest.

“All the parties have come into agreement that we must introduce private sector investment into the National Theatre. That report and the next steps to be taken are before the President and I am optimistic that once we get the President’s go ahead,  we are going to go to the public in order to invite expressions of interest but then we are going to also seek a special dispensation by the president to allow us to reach out to those with specific capacity because the thing about going to public to request for expression of interest is that all and sundry will send in a bid and half will just be dissipating energy and engaging you in a futile evaluation.

But government also has a position where, if you make a case, then it is possible for the FEC to grant you a special dispensation to actually identify and invite those with continental and global capacity or experience in this.”

Trouble brews
There were rumours in January that President Goodluck Jonathan had approved the report Duke mentioned during the interaction but nobody knew this for a fact because the Calabar high chief kept things close to his chest. That is, until Wednesday when a national daily reported that the National Theatre is to be converted into a five-star hotel. The headline, of course, was sensational but the crux of the matter, as Duke had earlier informed,  is that a five-star hotel, shopping mall, multi-level car park, land and water restaurant and offices amongst others are to be built on the complex’s sprawling grounds.

What Duke never mentioned in his interactions with journalists, was that some agencies were going to be relocated. “Please recall that the inevitability of relocating your office was discussed at the meeting I had with you on this development on 5th of March, 2013 in Lagos.

“To this effect, you are hereby advised to relocate your office within two (2) weeks to an alternative location as suggested at the meeting, so as to pave way for the development that is to be situated where your office is currently located.

“Please note that this relocation is temporary as the structures that will eventually provide accommodation for your operations are being envisaged under the new arraignment,” the Minister told the affected agencies in a letter dated March 18, 2013. 

If the infrastructure was going to be expanded, why ask, say, the National Troupe, which occupies the main building to move? Artistic Director of the Troupe, Martin Adaji, doesn’t know where to move to. “I don’t have a place to move to and I have artistes who are in camp and we have a joint decree with the National Theatre. I don’t know if the National Theatre got the same letter, I don’t know which other agency got the same letter,” Adaji who got the letter and responded to it said. He disclosed that he was not part of the March 5 meeting and is awaiting the reply to his letter stating he has no alternative location.

Reactions to alleged conversion
Expectedly, players in the culture sector are opposed to the move. Reacting last year to the FG’s plans when the news started circulating; Secretary General of the Committee for Relevant Art (CORA), Toyin Akinosho noted that: “Mr Duke, who is thinking of building hotels and casinos and restaurants and bars around the premises, should know that programming used to be what determined the appeal of the National Theatre; that if people knew that there would be comedy on Tuesday, Masquerade dancing on Wednesday, Ewi Poetry in one hall and Igbo Nollywood screening in the next, running simultaneously, that the public would own the venue...The high chief of Duke Town must know that there must be something so wrong with the current management of the Theatre for those who ought to take advantage of the venue to run away from it, leaving the precinct to drunkards who invade the beer parlours in the evenings and urinate everywhere.”

Former General Manager of the National Theatre, Professor Femi Osofisan said: “It is the only National Theatre we have and somebody is thinking of turning it into a hotel. At the same time, they are even talking of building one in Calabar. Meanwhile, the one in Abuja has not even been built. The land is there, the plan has been drawn, just ready to be done and they didn’t even talk about that. Suddenly I am hearing of turning the place into a hotel.

“It is absolute rubbish as far as I am concerned. What is the logic behind it? It is the only national theatre we have. At the last playwright confab which I convened in Ife, people are even asking for more theatres and that even local government councils should be mandated to build a theatre each.” He added that artists would resist the move like they did several years ago.   

Arts manager and producer, Tope Babayemi who operates The Little Theatre at the National Theatre Annexe, blames President Goodluck Jonathan for appointing wrong people to call the shots at the ministry and theatre. “Mr. President should learn to put round pegs in round holes in the creative sector. Our structure for managing and promoting national culture is in deep crisis; that is from the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation downwards. Meanwhile, the President is giving handouts to enterprise driven areas of the sector (Nollywood and entertainment) that need more effective regulation rather than funding whilst ignoring the most important area. That’s the ministry that has the statutory responsibility for engendering the sense of national pride in the citizenry and promoting our national culture.

“Remember, according to Belinsky (1846), ‘To take away from art the right to serve public interest is not to elevate it, but to debase it, because it means to deprive it of its  own natural force and to transform it into a play thing for idlers’. We are beginning to see how patronage breeds mediocrity in our land. In the first place, those two; Edem Duke and Kabir Yusuf Yar’Adua, have absolutely no business running culture and tourism in this country or any sane nation if not for party patronage.”

‘President Jonathan approved the plan’
Defending the Minister against alleged underhand dealings in the process, his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Dr. Taiwo Oladokun, in a statement said that plans to redevelop the National Theatre predates the Jonathan administration. He added that government knew about all the steps taken by Duke and that the President approved them: “The Federal Government set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee including the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Ministry of Lands and Housing, Ministry of  Works, Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission, Surveyor-General of the Federation and the Lagos State Government.

“This committee met for several months and developed for the President, a proposal, based on the original master plan of the National Theatre, which the President approved. Approval was also obtained from the President for work to commence on the site through a Public- Private-Partnership arrangement.”

Oladokun added that heads of the affected agencies told to relocate were informed earlier but failed to say where they are to move to.  “Consequently, the Minister held a meeting with Heads of Agencies and other organizations operating around the National Theatre and briefed them on details of the project and the need to vacate the location temporarily for the planned development to take place. 

“For the avoidance of doubt therefore, what was given to the organizations concerned was not a quit notice but a simple directive to embark on temporary relocation, consequent upon previous communication, pending the completion of the project as they will all be accommodated eventually in line with the master plan which Government is determined to implement.”

What is clear from all this is that the National Theatre is not about to be turned to a hotel, it’s is to be redeveloped according to its original master plan to broaden its offerings. But will artists agree to this and the proposed PPP? It’s early days yet.

Source: Tribune