Ojogwu disclosed this at the QED Creative Presentation Summit in Lagos, where she argued that the exclusion reflected a wider policy gap in the way publishing is classified within Nigeria’s creative economy.

According to her, trade publishing was largely left out because government institutions continue to associate publishing primarily with the education sector, particularly the production of textbooks and curriculum materials.

She, however, distinguished trade publishing from educational publishing, describing it as an important source of intellectual property that feeds other parts of the creative economy.

Ojogwu said books and written works frequently provide the original intellectual property from which films, television productions and other creative projects are developed.

She cited the works of Nigerian authors, including Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, as examples of trade-published intellectual property with potential and actual downstream adaptation into other creative formats.

She argued that treating trade publishing merely as an extension of education policy could prevent the sector from receiving the investment and institutional recognition required to fully contribute to the country’s creative economy.

According to her, Nigeria’s creative financing framework should recognise publishing as part of the intellectual-property infrastructure supporting the wider sector.

Ojogwu said Narrative Landscape Press had responded to the challenge by helping to design and co-implement the “Book Factory”, a comics-focused publishing initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s publishing ecosystem.

She said the initiative was part of efforts to demonstrate the commercial and creative value of publishing while encouraging greater recognition of books and other written works as sources of intellectual property.

The publisher also called for closer collaboration between the publishing and film industries, particularly by encouraging Nigerian filmmakers to acquire adaptation rights to locally produced books.

She argued that greater use of Nigerian-authored books as source material for film and other creative productions could strengthen the domestic intellectual property chain and create additional revenue opportunities for authors, publishers and filmmakers.

The National Coordinator for Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (IDICE), Ife Adebayo, disclosed this while delivering the keynote address at the QED Creative Presentation Summit in Lagos.

Adebayo said the model would see government provide seed capital to selected fund managers, who would then be required to raise additional private capital before investing in creative businesses and projects.

He explained that the arrangement was designed to ensure that public funding serves as a catalyst for significantly larger private-sector investment rather than becoming the sole source of capital for entrepreneurs.

According to him, the model has already been tested in Nigeria’s technology ecosystem, where one fund manager received approximately $26 million in public capital and subsequently raised an additional $64 million from private investors.

He said the fund went on to invest in businesses including logistics platform Pestcaz, Flutterwave and Big Events.

Adebayo stressed that the matching requirement applies to the fund managers and their investors, rather than individual entrepreneurs seeking funding.

This, he said, would prevent creative entrepreneurs from having to raise matching funds themselves before accessing investment.

The IDICE coordinator also disclosed that the investment framework was deliberately designed to operate over a longer period than conventional venture capital funds.

According to him, the base investment fund has a 10-year lifespan, while an associated fund-of-funds vehicle has a 15-year lifespan, with the possibility of extending it to 17 years.

He said the longer investment horizon was necessary because creative projects often require significantly more time to develop, produce, distribute and generate returns.

“For the first time, an African government is saying we’re going to be patient,” Adebayo said.

He contrasted the structure with technology investments, where startups can sometimes attract funding quickly based on scalable business models and projected growth.

In the creative industry, however, he said projects such as films could take several years to move from development and production to distribution and eventual returns for investors.

Adebayo said the patient-capital approach was therefore intended to accommodate the peculiarities of creative businesses while creating a framework capable of attracting private investment into the sector.