Solutions Journalist emphasises need for creative stories
By Joy Obanya
Nathaniel Bivan, a solutions and conflict Journalist, has stressed the need for compatriots to always tell creative and innovative stories about Nigeria and Africa at large, to bolster meaningful growth.
Bivan, who is also author of the debut novel: “Boys Girls and Beasts” released on Nov. 15, 2024, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja.
He said it is important to tell stories the best way that showcase solutions and promote understanding about pressing social and environmental challenges to ensure progress.
Bivan said, “We need to explore the Nigerian and African story the best way we can, be it through fiction or nonfiction.
“Sometimes it is simply important to express yourself in the ways you can as a writer, so the world benefits from your wealth of knowledge or perspective.
“In this case, speculative fiction is my preferred tool since I have been a journalist for more than a decade and reporting happenings within my country has always been my responsibility.
“In fiction, I find an escape, a place to reveal what I may not be able to report and give my readers the opportunity to interpret and reflect on what I have offered.”
He explained that his motive for writing was not to entertain or please anybody, but that such ideas were inspired based on news on TV, to behaviour or words from next-door neighbour, which trigger thought or an image in his mind.
“It happened with BGB. The thought of unmerited forgiveness after committing a series of atrocities drove me to Jaka’s story.
“Also, how he evolved from an innocent and ordinary boy in Malovo, a city state in a United Nations of West Africa of my own creation, to a beast with superhuman abilities,” he added.
He explained the novel, which have as its theme: redemption, forgiveness, love and hate; saying it takes hate to kill, love to forgive and repentance to get saved from the beast within us.
He, however, advised that people look inward at the state of their society, country and continent, adding what Boys, Girls and Beasts explores is not peculiar to Nigerians or Africans.
“Some of it is a global phenomenon or crises. I also hope it helps us take a good look at ourselves and how our actions or inactions can affect us, our society and the future generation, either positively or negatively.
“We must also realise that terrorism across the world, particularly those carried out by ISIS and Boko Haram, has underground sponsors and followers who walk amongst us.
“These unknown supporters of terror groups share their ideology and pose a much bigger challenge to the world today.
“Jaka represents the innocent citizen who gets sucked into the crises and who needs to find his way back home.
“How the government handles people like him is a great concern, just like the safe corridor project in Nigeria is dependent on efficiency of our system in successfully de-radicalising members of Boko Haram who are undergoing rehabilitation,” he said.
Bivan, a former Arts Editor for Daily Trust Newspapers and Features Editor for HumAngleMedia, had over a decade practiced solutions and conflict journalist in Kaduna, Plateau, Niger, and Borno states.(NAN) (nannews.com.ng)
Edited by Ismail Abdulaziz
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