Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State has assured youths of his administration’s commitment to uplifting creativity and talent through various platforms.
Ugwuanyi gave the assurance Saturday evening at the grand finale and award night of the “2022 Edition of Life In My City Art Festival (LIMCAF) which was themed: “Paradox of Muted Echoes”.
The Governor, represented by the Commissioner for Lands, Chief Chidi Aroh, noted that the state government would continue to give hope to the youths by supporting their creativity, talent and zeal in order to bring out their best.
According to him, as a government, we will continue to create enabling environment for creativity of our youths to be heard and seen clearly and sustain our support for various platforms in this direction.
“The state government will continue to support the youth, creativity and this particular festival to achieve greater heights since it serves as a spring board to showcase their artistic creativity to the entire world.
“I will want to commend the organisers for making this festival an annual one since 2007 and taking pains and resources to teach and bring the very best out of our talented youths,” he said.
Speaking, the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, urged the youth to be hard working and determined to get to the zenith of anything they had passion as “there lies the future for you”.
Achebe thanked the sponsors of the festival – MTN Foundation, Ford Foundation and others – for sustaining the festival and “making it a global brand notwithstanding its very humble beginning”.
“LIMCAF Art Festival, within 16 years, has grown to become the largest and highest running art festival in the country collecting hundreds of art works yearly.
“It is time to take and expand LIMCAF beyond Nigeria to an African scope and magnitude,” said the Obi of Onitsha, who spoke through a virtual platform.
Chairman of the LIMCAF Board of Trustees, Elder K.U. Kalu, said that LIMCAF was able to send the overall winners in its past 16 editions to an African art exhibition in Dakar, Senegal, to get more exposure in arts.
Kalu explained that for this year’s edition, a total of 270 art entries were received from eight zonal and region centres throughout the country.
“We follow up on career development of our youths, especially those that have won various categories, as well as our yearly overall winners.
“Hundreds of youths have found livelihood through arts, some have become international artists while others have discovered themselves by participating in this festival, which indicates that our investment is yielding fruits.
“I must appreciate MTN Foundation, Ford Foundation, Pinnacle Oil and Gas Ltd and a host of others, as well as families and individuals that have endowed prizes at the yearly grand finale,” he said.
In a goodwill message, Dennis Okoro, who represented MTN Foundation, said that the telecommunication firm was sponsoring the festival as part of its corporate social responsibility.
Okoro noted that the Foundation was impressed with the yearly outcome of the festival and its focus of enhancing capacity and providing platform for artistic excellence among youths in the country.
“Sponsoring this art festival remains a wise decision as it brings hope and gives platforms to hundreds of youths from different parts of the country yearly and creates an enabling environment for youths to learn from renowned art scholars.
“In MTN Foundation, our mandate focuses on education, health and human empowerment; while presently we have over 5,000 medical and science students under our scholarship,” Okoro, who is also a teacher, said.
Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima, representative of Ford Foundation, said that the artistic works of the young artists were a reflection of the society and its “pain and agony”.
“The artistic works speak volumes of the reality within the society and its shows that the youths are much aware of societal issues,” Mac-Ikemenjima said.
The Chairman of the grand finale, Elder U.K. Eke, said that the festival provided opportunity for the society to truly connect with the youth and share in their hopes, aspirations and struggles.
Prof. Jerry Buhari, who led a five-man jury for the art work entries, advised all the young artists to continue their hard work even if they were not among the first 25 that would be given prizes.
Buhari, who is a professor of fine art from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, said that the works were judged individually by members of the jury, before overall collation of the individual results, based on creativity, originality, work presentation and explanation, among others.
In the award proper, four school children got N50,000 cash award each in the children category; while some schools within Enugu metropolis got art textbooks.
A total of 14 artists among the final 25 artists got N20,000 consolation cash prizes each; while five artists got endowment prizes from notable individuals and families.
For the remaining six; Abiodun Emmanuel won the best textile art/fashion and got N250,000; Segun Adebayo won best photography/video and got N250,000; Idowu Abayomi won best graphics/digital.
