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As the curtain fell on the 26th Lagos Book & Art Festival (LABAF) in the plenary room of the week-long festival, the Committee for Relevant Art, CORA, promoter of the festival announced the date and theme for the 27th edition.
This is in keeping to tradition of the festival since it was born in 1999 in the cusp of Nigeria’s transition from military rule to civilian governance. The date and theme for next year’s festival is always unveiled in the closing glee – usually a poetry concert – of the outgoing edition.
CORA Secretary-general, Toyin Akinosho, in making the announcement, stated that LABAF 27.0 will hold November 10-16, 2025 on the theme: “CHANGE: Imaginings Alternatives.”
Before the full room audience which included Chairman CORA Board of Trustees, Chief Kayode Aderinokun, members of the CORA Volunteers Corps, CVC, and other guests, Akinosho revealed why the theme was chosen. He reminded that the past few editions had been critical of the systems that run affairs of Nigeria, and the continent; thus, the next edition would be making vital contribution to national discourse by offering a platform for people to explore possible alternatives to what currently operates.
According to Akinosho, LABAF 26.0’s theme “BREAKOUT: Hope Is a Stubborn Thing” examined the grievances and deterioration in major sectors in Nigeria; “aside from the issues of ethnicity and bad governance, hope becomes a coping mechanism and survival technique for everyone.”
Akinosho also revisited the themes of LABAF 24.0 and 25.0, relating how such addressed the worrisome developments in the social and political fabrics of Nigeria, and by extension, Africa.
Explaining further the theme for 2025 LABAF, Akinosho stated: “While the just concluded festival is on Hope as a stubborn thing, we’re wondering whether the way the world is going, the eruptions that are happening all over the place and the state of things do not make people to begin to think about the idea of change. The idea of change is not just “change” as it is but “imagining alternatives”, whether at a personal level, or at the national level, or at the global level. For instance, whether the present government will be thinking in terms of how to change its own narrative of governance or whether the Democratic Party in America could begin to respond to aspirations or imagining alternatives.”
The CORA Secretary-general added that “The books that speak to imagination about alternatives will be major books of the festival.”
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