Steve Babaeko

 

Steve Babaeko is the Chief Executive Officer of  X3M Ideas, and  Immediate Past President, Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN). In this recent interview, he touches on his two-term tenure at the helm of affairs of the association, the state of Nigeria’s creative industry, and how the industry should begin to own narratives, regarding the country and her image. Excerpts

 

 

Q: What would you consider as the take-away from the theme of this year’s conference, ‘Breaking The Mould: Creativity and National Development’, organized by your association?

 

This is quiet simple. One of the take-aways is that as a nation, we have a huge opportunity to be able to use creativity as a tool for national development. So we have to break away from the mould of that negative spirit that seems to have enveloped the nation. Yes, there are so many things that we can improve upon, as a  nation. But, we’ve seen other countries that are even much more in negative balance than Nigeria, still finding  that energy to talk positive about themselves.  And as custodian of that creative industry, I think the time has come for us to be able to use the tool of creativity as a big weapon for turning round the negative story about Nigeria, and make it positive.

 

 

Q- If you look at some countries, especially America, the citizens talk positive about the country because of the value they get. How do we apply such to Nigeria, where such value can not be said to be there?

 

 

There is a whole lot of issues that we need to dissect here. Yes there is the role of government. Government has to stand up and do better. They need to throw that sense of hope for the citizens to latch on. Also, as a people, we must stand up and say enough of this cynicism, enough of this negativity, if we don’t develop this our country, we are not going to go anywhere. And I can give you instances where Nigerians have really risen up to the occasion. When it comes to tech, Nigeria remains a front-runner. You see young people, developing young tools and young applications that are very valuable,  in that regard. In Africa we are the top player when it comes to that, and you can see the  money coming in. How much did the government do? Yesterday our policies were  whatever, but it took some young Nigerians to stand up and say this is where we are going to go. In movies, the legend of Nollywood is there for everybody to see. Some filmmakers stood up to say we are going to create this industry where nothing existed, and we are going to shout about Nigeria. You go to other countries, they are so enamoured by Nollywood movies. Let’s talk about music, you see Burna Boy shutting down massive arenas all over the world. You see Wizzkid, Tiwa Savage, Davido, all of these guys, young talents from Nigeria, going out to compete.

 

Q- You are talking about talents, and they are huge, but the infrastructure is not just there. So what do we do to create viable infrastructure for all these to take place?

 

You are very correct. But when you look at the situation, you have to reverse- engineer the process. The beautiful thing is that Nigeria has a way of leapfrogging. Instead of moving from stage one to three, we have a way of starting at stage 6, and now reverse to cover a little bit of stages 1 to 5. In other countries in Africa, they are praying to have these iconic celebrities, but they don’t have them. But we have jumped all of these stages and produce these iconic young men and women, taking the world by storm. Government can reverse-engineer this process, and create capacity stadium and event facilities,  and look at how we can then repatriate the economy behind those things, and bring them back home.

 

 

Q- And how would you describe  your tenure and experience as  President of AAAN?

 

To be honest I would prefer others do the assessment. I think it would be tantamount to chest-thumping if I say I did this or that. I think I will leave my performance for history to be the judge. But, I feel confident that I’m leaving AAAN way better than I met it.