Message delivered by Her Excellency, First Lady of Ekiti State, Erelu Bisi Fayemi at the flag-off of the second phase of A-book-A-Child at the 37th annual International convention of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) in Lagos.

1. SOLIDARITY MESSAGE FOR ANA CONFERENCE
Protocols
It gives me great pleasure to be here today at the opening of the 37th
Annual ANA Conference. I
would like to thank our President Mr Denja Abdullahi and his colleagues for inviting me. You will
note that I used the word ‘our’ which means I consider myself a full member of ANA, even
though I have not filled a membership form yet. I am particularly pleased to have been asked to
flag off another phase of the ‘Book a Child’ project which is a very important flagship program of
ANA.
I have several identities – feminist activist, policy advocate, social entrepreneur, political spouse
and so on. However, my identity as a writer gives me a lot of joy, peace and satisfaction. Three
things inspire me to write:
 To be heard
 To bear witness
 To teach
 To learn
People often ask where I find the time. My response is usually that you find time for the things that are
important to you. I admit there was a time in my life when I did not have the time to write beyond what
was required of me professionally. However, I have come to the understanding that what often weighs
me down and gets in the way is not necessarily time, but the sheer enormity of translating what we see,
hear and talk about on a daily basis into formats that make sense, even when we ourselves can’t make
sense of the world around us. Whether we write novels, poetry, plays, children’s books, essays, however
we choose to express ourselves, when we write we are doing a combination of speaking up, bearing
witness, teaching and learning. Very few writers ever get rich from writing, they are a tiny percentage.
Yet we are astronomically rich when it comes to imagination, creativity, passion, courage, envisioning
and engineering. These are the attributes that help transform societies and change narratives. There is a
lot to discourage us as writers and a lot that makes us feel unappreciated. However, as we harness our
respective talents using the formidable platform that ANA provides across the country, we discover that
the burden gets easier as we leverage on our mutual strengths, use our diversity to full advantage and
take our responsibilities as creators of ideas and knowledge seriously.
I bring you warm greetings from Ekiti State, the Land of Honour, also known as the Fountain of
Knowledge. In his inauguration speech on October 16th
, our Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi identified
Knowledge Economy as one of the four pillars of his administration alongside Social Investments,
Infrastructure Development and Agriculture. This means that the State will not only prioritise
investments in education, an enabling environment that encourages creativity in all its forms will be
provided. As part of the inauguration activities, there was a JKF Essay Writing Competition, aimed at
encouraging young people to write and express themselves, and it was very successful. The lessons-
learnt from that experience will inform how we address this issue going forward, knowing the context
we are dealing with now. We now live in a world of limited attention spans, an anti-intellectual culture
encouraged or condoned by a selfish elite and in a time when the ability to write a coherent essay is a

2. rare feat. The reward of the writer is not in heaven. Our reward is right here on earth, in every line, page
and volume we write, living testimonies for generations to come. People will love us, some might not
like us, it does not matter. What is important is letting the world know what we think.
Once again, I thank ANA for inviting me. I hereby formally declare the Book A Child Campaign open. I am
making a private donation to ANA and will also establish a partnership with ANA Ekiti to ensure that the
government plays a role in encouraging a culture of writing and reading.
God bless you all