What caused the extinction of Dinosaurs? Drastic climatic change, Asteroid shower, or they just ate each other up??? Nobody really cares. But immediate actions need to be taken before books and the reading culture in Nigeria, follows the way of the dinosaur and is being referred to in past tense.
Nigerians are discarding the culture of reading at an alarming rate, especially in schools where this is supposed to be the norm, the libraries are always empty until the exam approaches, with lecturers making it ‘easier’ by offering the students handouts which they can breeze through a few weeks before the exams, reading for the sake of research and intellectual stimulation is virtually non-existent these days.
Even after Degree programs, everybody seems to be ‘relieved’ that they do not need to read anymore, wrong! The sole basis for education is to develop the mind; not to obtain papers. When the mind of the people is well developed the society has a chance of being developed too.
Nigeria will significantly develop as a people and a nation if structures are put in place to cement the reading culture, especially among children.
The major inhibiting factor that keeps our young folk away from books I feel is the computer and the internet; they know when Apple would release its next gadget with all its full features and they think Chinua Achebe was a former Head of State.
Another major drawback is Accessibility; usually in Africa, the government is the biggest purchaser of books, especially textbooks for schools. But children do not always respond favourably to textbooks and they may not be good at reading them, especially if textbooks are the first materials they read.
Plus everyone wants to read a good story. But with the lack of good reading materials, standards of literacy are decelerating, and skills of PlayStation 3 are improving.
We sure do have a couple of bookstores in Nigeria, but where do I get a Wole Soyinka book written in 1975? Or a book such as The Untold Story of the Nigeria-Biafra war by Dr Aneke?? How do we get these books across to the prospective readers??
There is an online bookstore on www.naira.com containing thousands of books from established merchants such as Evans, Dada Books and Glendora books; the online store consists of a wide variety of books including novels historical, political, children, religious, educational, motivational, classical books, biographies and even books in our local dialects (our local dialects are in a Survival of the Fittest fight with the English language), books written as far back as before independence to books written a couple of months ago. Payments for these books are straight forward and easy, and they will be delivered to your doorstep.
By so doing lots of Nigerian graduates including professors remain enlightened in the evolving world of new ideas.
When the resolve or enthusiasm to improve oneself dies, life as a whole begins to die. To maintain a highly developed and greatly improving society, we need to maintain a high level of intellectualization via the reading culture.
Education for the progressive mind is far beyond schooling. Regular update through reading should be a way of life, hence the term reading ‘culture’. To stop reading is to stop updating. And to stop updating in an ever changing world is to start decaying.
So before books start eating each other up, or climate change leads to the extinction of books, we should act fast and save the books, buy more books for yourself and your kids, and instill a reading attitude on the upcoming generation.
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