Whither Port Harcourt Book Festival?

The Garden City literary festival renamed, Port Harcourt Book Festival, began as the brain child of Koko Kalango, who thought it up as a means to propel tourism and highten literary awareness in the city of Port Harcourt and its neighboring areas, encourage love for books and reading culture in Africa with focus on children.
Originally scheduled for September 8 each year, to coincide with the United Nations International Literacy Day, the festival has continued to expand and has been highly rated since its debut in 2004. The literary event included a book fair, writers workshop and forums. An integral part of the festival showcased activities for children such as essay competition, art drama, writing competitions, workshops and sessions to encourage children to read.
The events usually attracted some big names in the literary arts; hundred of fans flocked to the Garden City every year for this six day event. The inaugural edition was held as a three-day event from the 24 to 27 September, 2008. It was dubbed Garden City Literary Festival with its them as ‘Writers Without Borders’. Special guests included Prof Wole Soyinka, Kofi Awoonor and late captain Elechi Amadi, with writers Okey Ndibe, Kaine Agaray and Petrina Crockford.
The second festival, (Nigeria’s 50 years of post colonial literature), was held on September 23 to 26, 2009. In attendance were authors Ngugi Wa Thiongo, JP Clark, Buchi Emecheta A. Igoni Barrett, Toni Khan, Sefi Attah, Lindsay Berrett, Toni Ka, Fela Durotoye, Tade / Padeola, Jumuoke Verissimo, Abimbola Adunni and Joy Isi Bewaji. It was coordinated by United Kingdom’s Nana Ayebia Clarke along with representatives from book builders and the British Council.
Author Ngugi Wa Thiongo presented a Keynote address at the event, which was “Language As Bridges: Building Network Against linguistic Feudalism and Darwinism”. The 2010 festival saw change in its mouth of occurrence for the first time as it was held between 8th and 11th December 2010, more than 100 people attended the event that year.
In 2011, the event shifted back to its initial period taking place between 12th and 17th September 2011, its theme was, “literature and Politics:, the festival was formerly opened by Ex-Governor Chibuke Ameachi and former Common Wealth Secretary General, Emeka Anyaoku. For the first time in its history, it lasted for five days. Other prominent attendces were Chinua Achebe and his son, Dr Chidi Achebe, who presented the main speech and activist, Jesse Jackson.
The fifth Garden City Literary Festival, Women In Literature was moved to October and held from 15th to 20th with Hotel Presidential as the festival venue, Garden City literary festival guest such as Veronique Tadjo, Doreen Baingana, Elechi Amadi, Gabriel Okara and Prof E.J Alagoa participated.
There was also a book put together by Mrs Koko titled ‘coat of Many Colours’ along side then president, Goodluck Jonathan and former Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amechi both of whom contributed to its forward and introduction, respectively.
Also joining the group were former Cross River State Governor, Donald Duke, Prof Wole Soyinka and Mrs Ibim Seminitari. Towards the end of the occasion, the city of Port Harcourt was re-ignited as UNESCO World Book capital for the year 2014. In August 2013, Mrs Kalango announced that the garden city literary festival has been renamed Port Harcourt Book Festival, citing reasons that the new name would assist in elevating Port Harcourt’s profile as a legitimate destination for all things literary.
In 2014, the festival took place in Port Harcourt and was opened with a key note address by Noble Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, the theme of the festival was “Books: Windows. To Our World Of Possibilities”, highlights of the event in 2014 included the presentation of a dance drama titled “Along came the Book” which was directed by award winning play wright, Bikiya Graham Douglas.
In addition to it, there was a presentation of a book titled “The Walking Book” which is a communal story covering the sights and sounds of Rivers State written by different children who were selected from the 23 Local Government Areas of Rivers State. 12 books were carefully selected to be featured in the festival in 2014. Some of the books were Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe (April), the Great Ponds by Elechi Amadi (May), This Child Shall Be Great by Ellen Shirley Johnson (June) and Tomorrow Died Yesterday by Chimeka Garricks (August).
The world book capital position always brings benefits to children in terms of improving their reading and literary culture and submissions to host it are always considered, based on their impact of a book club in the aspect of reading culture and literary programmes in the society.
In 2014, the festival brought honour to sub Saharan Africa, when Port Harcourt City won the right to host UNESCO world book capital. Alexandra in Egypt was the other city to be honoured, Port Harcourt became the second African City and the first Sub Saharan city to hold this position, all thanks to the Rainbow Book Club, whose submission to host the annual book day to the UNESCO was approved.
Port Harcourt became the 4th city to be named the UNESCO World Book Capital, following other countries like Madrid, Amsterdam, Beirut and others. The UNESCO World Book City always holds that position for one year and it starts on the 23rd of April, the chosen year Port Harcourt handed over the position as UNESCO World book capital to Incheon in South Korea in April 2015.
The festival was stalled in 2015 due to lack of funding as a result of the change of government in Rivers State, as government being prominent partners. Critics and academics have also attributed this to lack of strategic planning aside from funding.

By: Jacob Obinna