How the deplorable State of Tamale Center for National Culture is affecting arts, culture, and tourism in Tamale

The Deplorable State of Tamale Center for National Culture is affecting arts, culture, and tourism 

Arts, entertainment, and tourism play a  critical role in sustaining every economy. Many jobs are created within the sub-economy of the arts and tourism sector. 

If the sector is properly developed, it will contribute significantly to the creation of private-sector jobs for the teeming unemployed youth in Ghana. Regrettably, governments over the years have not been able to harness the sector that could be the game-changer in creating private-sector jobs to address the unemployment situation in the country.

Paying critical attention to culture and arts will also create the enabling environment for tourism to flourish at a time when the government is cash-strapped and looking for revenue everywhere. 

The Centre for National culture is under the auspices of the National Commission on Culture and the Ministry of Tourism and creative arts.

As it captured on the website of the Centre for National Culture, the vision is to among other things: “To respect, preserve, harness and use cultural heritage and resources to develop a united, vibrant and a prosperous national community with a distinctive African identity and personality and collective confidence and pride of place among the comity of nations”. 

In furtherance to achieving its objectives, the mission of the National Commission on Culture is to maintain the unique cultural identity and values for the promotion of an integrated national culture, as well as contribute to the overall economic development of the nation. 

While its mandate was established by the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) law 238 in 1990 to manage from a holistic perspective of the Cultural life of our country Ghana. It is an implementation body under the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture charged with the responsibility of ensuring the implementation of the cultural policy of Ghana.

According to the managers of the facility, since the establishment of the Tamale Center for National Culture over 58 years ago, the facility has not seen any major facelift, except partial renovation years back.

The center has been left to decay despite several promises by governments to give the facility a befitting facelift.

The deplorable condition of the center.

Owing to the lack of adequate renovation over the years, the Tamale Centre for National Culture is now in a very deplorable state driving away visitors and tourists.

Describing how awful the Centre has become, the Regional Director of the Center for National Culture, Abubakari Iddrisu Saeed, lamented that, the sorry state of the center has negatively impacted every activity of the center.

He stated that the center faces a lot of challenges: including malfunctioning air conditioners, broken down ceiling fans, dilapidated theatre, leaking roof, broken furniture among others.

Decrying the nature of the center, Mr. Saeed said the facility is poorly resourced with inadequate office equipment for administrative purposes and does not depict a 21st-century office setup.

He further noted that insanitary conditions usually engulf the center during the rainy season and owing to the poor drainage system, the compound of the facility gets flooded. “Look if you walk in here after the rains, you won’t be comfortable. 

The whole environment looks business unfriendly. If you enter the theatre the whole place is leaking and imagine there is a performance and there is rainfall? You can imagine how the patrons will be struggling amid the downpour” he wondered.    
Mr. Abubakari Iddrisu Saeed stated that although the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in its 2016 and 2020 manifestoes promised to construct modern large theatres in all the 16 regional capitals, the promise is yet to be fulfilled.

A portion of the NPP 2016 manifesto reads: “The NPP government will focus on transforming the country into a major Meeting, Incentive, Conference, & Exhibition (MICE) center, as well as on expanding the tourism sector, through investment, innovation, the pursuit of service excellence and meaningful partnerships. This will enable tourism to become a major revenue-generating sector that provides a safe, memorable, and enjoyable experience for tourists.

The party also promised to establish a Creative Arts Fund to make available funds to modernize and develop the creative Arts industry in Ghana.”

He, however, appealed to the general public, investors, and the government through the sector minister to rehabilitate and give a proper facelift to the center. How does it affect entertainment?

In the past, the facility used to serve as a preferred low-cost venue for young and upcoming musicians who wanted to stage their shows but could not rent private venues which are costly. But the deplorable nature has forced them to abandon the facility. 

Lateef Adam, a young musician in Tamale with the stage name ‘Lee’ believes the abandoned nature of the facility is impacting negatively on their music career. He believes a well-functioning CNC could be a booster to his career and many young musicians.

“You know that I am a young artist and I don’t have the resources to rent big venues for my shows, so the CNC could just be a place for some of us. A lot of my colleagues have the same belief. So the sorry state of the facility now is affecting us”, he said.

A Tamale based Poet, Abdul-Hakim Yaro with the stage Ambitious the poet, posited that the enormous value of the Center for National Culture can be underestimated when refurbished.

“The Cultural Centre of Tamale can serve a huge purpose the Poetry industry in many ways when kept in a good shape... Poetry is an embodiment of various Cultures and transitions. Performers of poems often want to exhibit more performances that relate to their Culture but the avenues to do so have been lacking. 

The CNC happens to be one important avenue that can be used to organize poetry festivals on yearly basis and also house some great outfits of Cultural dresses which performers can rely on to produce a lively craft of performance that relate to their tribe and culture”, he noted.

He said “Aside from yearly festivals, poets who find challenge in hiring venues for Concerts can use the Centre to serve such purposes Cultural dances are some way somehow portraying elements of poetry looking deeply at songs that are sung in praises of chiefs or for dancers to exhibit their skills.

Poets can also organize programs in collaboration with Cultural tropes to show how different crafts of our culture are related to poetry. The CNC can serve as a venue for poetry parties in festive seasons.

Poets can also use the Centre for executive programs where they only intend to educate and entertain dignitaries or special guests in society”.

Another Poet in Tamale, Ibrahim Khadija said, “The deplorable state of the C.N.C. has halted the execution of its mission as in economic expansion through exhibitions, honeymoons, concerts, poetry recital, and other reality shows.

The center used to connect the diaspora to Tamale especially, the African-Americans but the poor state of the facility has disconnected all of that.”
Impact on Business
The Centre for National Culture plays host to a lot of business. It is used to be the center for artifacts and tourists who visit the city of Tamale would usually visit the center to patronize the artifacts there. 

It used to be the center of culture and you could find diverse Ghanaian cultural artifacts but owe to the continuous deteriorating state people hardly come there to buy such artifacts. Cecilia Kumi, who operates a shop there lamented that their businesses have almost become non-existent because of the state of the facility. 
“The poor nature of the center is affecting our businesses. We don’t even make sales again.

This facility has so many challenges that are driving people away from purchasing our goods. A lot of entertainment events were held here but of late no one comes here to organize events. So we are just here. A lot of foreign visitors used to come here but everything is just going away. We wish something can be done urgently to fix this. But we will to the government again to build a befitting edifice for us as a Centre for National Culture”, she lamented.

Over the past decades, several appeals have been made to the government and the local assemblies to reconstruct the facility to reflect the modern needs of the people but such has not been done. As the government has promised once again to construct a new center for the people of the northern region, one can only urge them to see the need to do so.

By Ibrahim Angaangmeni Alhassan