If policymakers, private partners, and the media pay attention, these conversations can evolve from ceremonial gatherings into sustained interventions. For now, the message is unmistakable: the North has many builders, innovators, and storytellers. The real task is to listen to them, recognise them, and create the conditions that allow them not just to survive, but to flourish.
There is always room for celebration. But progress demands honesty, especially when the realities on the ground refuse to be ignored. As a proud Northerner from Ilorin, Kwara State, I speak from both affection and concern when I say that the North today appears stuck between its immense potential and its unresolved contradictions. The challenges are real and enormous. Yet, so too are the quiet successes of individuals and communities who continue to make impact despite the odds.
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It was against this backdrop that the frank conversations at the 2025 Arewa Stars Awards in Kano felt both timely and necessary. Before the glamour of the evening ceremony, a more sobering engagement took place in the morning: the Kannywood Roundtable on Reputation Management and Digital Advancement. There, critical stakeholders dissected the structural and reputational challenges confronting the Northern film industry — an industry that must urgently catch up with global standards if it is to remain relevant.
The presence of representatives of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Voice of Nigeria (VON), and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) underscored the seriousness of the conversation. It signalled that the future of the North’s creative economy cannot be left to artists alone; it requires inter-agency collaboration, policy alignment, and strategic investment.
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At the awards ceremony later that evening, the tone widened from sectoral reflection to regional introspection. In his keynote address, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Awwal Musa Rafsanjani, delivered a message that cut through the applause: repositioning the North requires a fundamental shift in leadership priorities. Governance reform, education, transparency, accountability, and the deliberate empowerment of youth and women, he argued, are not optional — they are prerequisites for economic revival and narrative change.
Other voices echoed this urgency. Kano State’s Commissioner for Information, Comrade Ibrahim Abdullahi Waiya, alongside strategic communication scholar, Dr Sule Yau Sule, insisted that the North must wake up from its prolonged slumber if it hopes to reclaim relevance and progress. Their message was clear: sentiment cannot replace strategy, and nostalgia cannot substitute for reform.
Many guests described the Arewa Stars Awards as a thoughtful intervention in a region too often mentioned only in moments of crisis. By amplifying unheard voices and recognising achievers who rarely enjoy national spotlight, the awards attempt a subtle but powerful narrative correction. That night, young innovators, creatives, journalists, and community leaders hugged, laughed, posed for photographs, and left with plaques — and, more importantly, with encouragement. It was the kind of evening that mattered emotionally, even if its reach was still modest.
Yet, what made the day remarkable was not the awards alone, but the symmetry between celebration and critique. The Arewa Stars Awards honoured excellence, while the Kannywood Roundtable interrogated systems. One spotlighted individuals; the other examined structures. Together, they formed a rare ecosystem of recognition and reform.
The awards honoured a diverse roll call — innovators, activists, poets, journalists, teenage academic stars, humanitarians, and social-media influencers — demonstrating that Northern talent is neither scarce nor one-dimensional. Honorary recognitions extended to public figures, linking grassroots achievement to leadership with the capacity to institutionalise change. Crucially, the organisers insisted on credibility, subjecting hundreds of nominations to a merit-based jury process. This commitment moves the awards beyond tokenism toward becoming a genuine barometer of impact.
Meanwhile, at the Kannywood Roundtable, the industry’s “masquerades” — writers, directors, producers, technocrats — spoke candidly. They identified skills gaps in post-production, animation, and sound engineering; lamented the slow adoption of digital tools and artificial intelligence; and confronted persistent challenges such as piracy, poor remuneration, fragmented guilds, and gender imbalance. Yet, the mood was not defeatist. Practical solutions emerged: partnerships with technology agencies, specialised film schools, mentorship programmes, stronger intellectual property protection, insurance frameworks, and a pivot towards sustainable, business-driven models and streaming platforms.
What links both platforms is their shared philosophy: recognition without systems is brittle, and dialogue without celebration is demoralising. The Arewa Stars Awards convert applause into pressure for reform. The Kannywood Roundtable transforms critique into a roadmap for growth. Together, they argue that Northern Nigeria’s problems are not rooted in a lack of talent, but in weak structures and neglected ecosystems.
Perhaps most importantly, both initiatives challenge the lazy reduction of the North to a catalogue of deficits. They present a region capable of honest self-examination, willing to honour its builders, and prepared to propose solutions grounded in local realities. Their evening – roundtable rhythm — informal enough for candour, structured enough for commitment — creates spaces where mentorship, critique, and partnership can genuinely occur.
The practical next steps are neither abstract nor impossible: strengthen education and technical training, align creative industries with technology policy, improve welfare and rights protections for cultural workers, and use credible recognition as an incentive for excellence and accountability.
The Arewa Stars Awards and the Kannywood Roundtable were more than events; they were acts of narrative repair. They suggested that Northern Nigeria’s story need not be one of perpetual lag, but of resilience, creativity, and aspiration — if only the systems to support them are built.
If policymakers, private partners, and the media pay attention, these conversations can evolve from ceremonial gatherings into sustained interventions. For now, the message is unmistakable: the North has many builders, innovators, and storytellers. The real task is to listen to them, recognise them, and create the conditions that allow them not just to survive, but to flourish.
Aremu Haroon Abiodun is an event commentator and can be reached via [email protected].
