Then-UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy tours Art X Lagos in November 2024. Photo by Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, cropped (CC BY)
Lagos is setting the table for 2028. A 17-member UK creative delegation has wrapped a week of meetings in Lagos ahead of the UK–Nigeria Season of Culture in 2028, The Nation reported, citing a statement from the UK government in Abuja.
Key Takeaways
- The delegates came from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and work in film, TV, music, fashion, design, literature, theater and visual arts.
- Meetings ran around the Africa International Film Festival, Creative Africa Nexus Weekend, Lagos Fringe and Art X Lagos, per The Nation and Punch.
- The Season runs June to December 2028, with legacy activity through 2029, according to the British Council.
- It is delivered by the British Council with Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Art, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy.
The Full Story
Talks focused on what creative businesses need to grow: skills, intellectual property protection, finance, production capacity, commissioning and distribution, Daily Trust reported. The work also feeds the UK–Nigeria Enhanced Trade and Investment Partnership’s creative industries working group, set up in March 2025.
“For me, the real measure of success will be what lasts beyond 2028: the tours, collaborations, publishing deals, television projects, fashion partnerships, and new businesses that grow from the relationships we are building now,” said Obi Asika, director-general of Nigeria’s National Council for Arts and Culture, per The Nation. British Deputy High Commissioner Jonny Baxter called the UK “a practical, long-term partner” to the sector.
The Social Conversation
Black British Book Festival founder Selina Brown, one of the delegates, said Lagos had been “absolutely incredible” and that the exchange should be “genuinely mutual, rooted in collaboration rather than the idea that knowledge only flows in one direction.” When the Season was announced in March, UK Arts Minister Ian Murray noted the UK is home to the largest Nigerian diaspora in Europe. The Season builds on the first UK/Nigeria Season in 2015–16.