Some occupants of the artists’ village within the
National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC), National Arts Theatre Complex in Iganmu,
Lagos State, on Tuesday appealed to the Federal Government to renovate the
facilities there.
They told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in
separate interviews in Lagos that the renovation would go a long way in
restoring the complex’s lost glory.
The occupants explained that the enthusiasm they
had in the past about it had died, owing to what they called the deplorable
state of the village.
If the government could renovate the village, it
would encourage more artists to patronise it and further promote creativity ,
they said.
Mr Lari Williams, a veteran actor and playwright,
said that the village was one of its kinds in West Africa and it was a good
thing that it had existed.
Williams commended the initiative while calling
for an improvement and expansion of some of the facilities in the village.
The actor said that the facility was sufficient
for administration purposes but would need to be expanded for studio, dance
chorography among others.
Williams urged the government to provide the
village with pipe borne water and borehole water so that the occupants could
have access to clean and drinkable water.
He said that the village constituted a community
of professional creative artists in different ramifications of the arts like
sculpture, dance among others.
“It is a centre of creative arts where one can
supply performing arts to our cultural life’’, Williams said.
However, Mrs Angela Obe, a caterer, said that
there was no toilet in the whole of the village and that the occupants usually
urinated in the canal.
“Whenever we feel pressed, we go to the canal to
ease ourselves for lack of toilets’’, she said.
NAN, however, observed that some of the buildings
in the village were still in good conditions while others need to be renovated.
NAN also reports that the roofs of one of the
canteens there needed repairs as two or more of its asbestos had gone bad
An NCAC official who pleaded anonymity said that
the government did not have to demolish the already existing facilities to
replace them with sky scrapers.
“We are okay with what is on ground now. What we
need is an enabling environment for the artists to thrive’’, she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment