The Chief Executive Officer of Narrative Landscape Press, Anwuli Ojogwu, has called for trade publishing to be included in Nigeria’s creative-economy funding programmes, arguing that publishers play an important role in developing intellectual property for film, television and other creative industries.

Ojogwu made the call at the QEDNG Creative Powerhouse Summit in Lagos, where she said publishing had been excluded from the Creative Economy Development Fund and a government mapping exercise designed to identify activities across the sector.

She argued that the exclusion was partly linked to the traditional classification of publishing as an education-focused industry centred on textbooks and curricula.

According to her, this approach overlooks trade publishing, which produces books for the general market and creates intellectual property that can later be adapted into films, television productions and other creative formats.

Ojogwu described publishing as a fundamental part of the creative economy, saying Nigeria already has a large body of literature that could provide source material and intellectual property for the country's film industry.

She also urged Nigerian filmmakers to explore locally published literature for stories rather than focusing primarily on whether such works would appeal to international markets.

The Director General of the Rivers State Tourism Development Agency, Yibo Koko, also called for a broader understanding of the economic value of Nigeria's creative and cultural sectors.

Koko said culture should be treated as an economic resource capable of generating investment, jobs, sponsorship and tourism, rather than simply as a social or recreational activity.

The summit, themed “Creativity, Culture and Nigeria’s Next Chapter,” brought together stakeholders from the creative, business, government and technology sectors to discuss investment, partnerships, job creation and sustainable development.