Always something triggers my memory these days. A few days ago, I chanced on a Niyi Osundare interview where he said something to the effect that farm work is the only vocation that someone else can do on your behalf but when it comes to reading, you must engage the text yourself. Reflecting on this observation again, my mind went to a multicity symposium we organized many years ago. The idea was to find out the nature of the reading culture in Nigeria. Do Nigerians read? If they read what do they read? What is the state of reading in Nigeria? The answer to that question may be out of my reach but I am aware of a program on African Independent Television (AIT) that takes children to different political leaders, as examples of readers are leaders. The impact of that program is not an issue for today but the future.
The Genesis
Once the Heinrich Boll Foundation project Coordinator accepted the draft proposal, a team of three Arts Writers was put together. Mr. Jahman Anikulapo, the (then) Arts Editor of Guardian Newspapers, was kind enough to allow Mr. Olayiwola Adeniji, who was then a reporter on the Arts Desk of the Guardian Newspaper to function as the Lagos Zonal Coordinator. It was through Mr. Olayiwola Adeniji that Mr. Salihu Bappa and Ibrahim Sheme of ABU and New Nigeria Newspapers respectively were included in the planning.
However, Mr. Sina Oladehinde with whom the entire media campaign started was an Arts Editor of Tribune Newspaper in Ibadan, Oyo State. He worked tirelessly as the zonal coordinator of Ife-Ibadan-Ilorin axis. Through Mr. Oladehinde, information was put out to the public asking those interested in participating in the symposium as paper presenters to get in touch with the organizing committee.
The potential participants were to send a one-page abstract of what they had done in the area of promoting the reading culture. After about seven weeks, a reasonable number of responses were received. In all, there were 27 abstracts from various parts of the country. From the entries, a selection was made and contact established with those considered for the event. We held discussions and/or provided comprehensive guidelines to those we could not hold direct discussions. It must also be stated that some paper presenters were specifically chosen to present papers because of their past involvement in promoting freedom of speech or reading or literary production.
Just as we reached out to individuals, we also sent letters and contacts to international agencies like USIS, British Council, UNESCO, Ford Foundation and the French Cultural Centre in Lagos. Unfortunately, only the Ford Foundation showed any interest. At a meeting with Mr. Fateh Azzam, who was the program officer, he promised to link us up with Tamer Institute, a Palestine Community Education agency based in Jerusalem. Due to the short notice, the promised representative could not make it to Kaduna for the workshop.
However, a series of promotional materials, newsletters and a brochure of other 1997-1998 series of activities were delivered to us. The hope then was to have a representative from the Tamer Institute during the second phase of the project. This never happened but it took little off the shine of the project.
Since the project was solely supported by Heinrich Boll Foundation, we also resolved to include previous or on-going projects sponsored by the
Foundation into this phase, as a way of relating to other segments of the larger programme and learn from their experiences and expertise. In many ways, this idea enriched phase one of the project. At various stages during the planning of the programme, it became imperative for the coordinators to define the basis for this project and clear the air in areas that appeared like duplication of similar projects. It was very clear from the onset that the reading promotion campaign only touched tangentially on the dynamics of book production, which is a forte of the Nigerian Book Foundation, and was not going to focus too much on problems of authorship. The main aim of the workshop was to examine the problems of promoting reading in a country battling with economic, social and political transitions and transformation.
However, the issue of what to read was not a contentious one. The question that imposed itself on the workshop had to do with the myth or reality of the true situation of reading in Nigeria. How many people read for pleasure and what is the breakdown of these readers? What follows is a brief report of the Kaduna end of the workshop.
REPORT OF THE WORKSHOP ON ENCOURAGING FREE SPEECH, PROMOTING THE READING CULTURE, HELD IN KADUNA, 28TH – 30TH APRIL, 1997
Introduction / Background
This report attempts not a summary but the essence of the process that led to the workshop and a very brief discourse on the issues raised at the event. However, the meat of papers presented will be found in the rapporteurs report. Furthermore, from the conception of the projects it was quite clear that a reading culture presupposes a reading ancestry capable of handing over a practice to another generation. Therefore, in planning it was evident that a sustainable reading culture cannot be discussed in vacuum, it had to be contextualized in a social environment that can evolve an interplay of thought (or research), dialogue and future action.
As part of the ongoing programmes of the Foundation, freedom of speech against the background of promoting a reading culture which can help an individual increase his/her ability to express experiences, construct knowledge and thought, became the pillar on which the entire project was rested. At another level of interrogation questions such as the relationship between free speech and a reading culture, were asked. As one of the paper presenters said in his submission, “It is convenient to think that a reading culture only thrives in a free society. The evidence unfortunately is that this is not necessarily so. The example of Russia and the Soviet Union shows that the reading culture has been very high during most of this century despite the tenure of communist repression for most of this time”. To put the Russian situation into proper context the terms “Samizat” and “Tamidat” must be invoked. Samizdat was “the informal system of publishing banned literature with the former USSR” while Tamidat represented “publishing of Soviet dissidents’ literature in the West”. As can be deduced the Soviet writer found ways around repression to make their views known. Another opinion expressed on the question suggests that full free speech is unlikely to be encouraged in anything less than a true democracy. In any case, what a free society does for her citizens is to encourage them think and act critically and independently.
In the words of Dr. (Mrs.) Stella Oyedepo, “the unsalutory effect of a declining reading habit is that there is an erosion of the psyche which is denied the nurturing effect of experiences gained from reading. The Nigerian environment is fast shrinking into isolated prison-like set-ups as traveling and mobility are restrained by a very harsh economy. Consequently, the world view of the individual becomes narrow and ignorance with its destructive influence becomes the norm. This reality is beginning to manifest in the Nigerian society where values are fast turning feeble, bizarre and perverted. True enough, the vast majority are still illiterate in spite of both national and international efforts to combat illiteracy. However, more worrisome is the ‘illiterates’ and educated people who betray crass ignorance. Apparently, they have lost their ‘literacy’ because of the abandoned reading habit. Men and women who have thus lost their intellectual power to ignorance unfortunately hold responsible positions which they mismanage with near-empty brains, shallow minds and directionless vision”.
To lend weight to this point, that there is a correlation between governance and the private/leisure of citizens. We were informed that a look into history reveals that Athenians, according to Pericles (Circa 404BC) were able to govern themselves and command the respect of the world far more than the Spartans, their chief rivals and other neighbors. The reason for this is that “(their) constitution also recognized the need for leisure by affording means for the mind to refresh itself from business so that it is ready – from continual rejuvenation to undertake its private and public avocations” (-from History of Constitution Making: The African Experience by Samuel O. Gayndah (Jr.) in Constitutions and Federalism, by Friedreich Ebert Foundation, Lagos, 1996).
However, in the 1880s when the art of reading and writing had gained ground it was not difficult for E. A. Ayandele to assert, “the elites began to have pride in African customs and institutions and regretted the avidity with which they had accepted alien forms of culture uncritically. This pride alerted their thinking, it meant the beginnings of independent thinking which made them assess and criticize more strongly than before missionary enterprise, colonial administration and the trading pattern of the Country”. The link therefore between free speech and a reading culture, has an ancestry and a future. “No doubt, reading to shape the mind, to gain more knowledge, to learn lessons from the lives of great men, to relax the mind, to experience other lives, becomes compelling for the development of the society” – Dr. (Mrs.) Oyedepo. (Ibid).
The suggestions made over two decades ago appear relevant until today in the age of digitalization. A few of these will suffice; Public reading at parks on Children’s Day (May 27) can be organized in collaboration with all stakeholders in the book industry.
It was suggested that the reading promotion exercise be extended to the grassroots.Finally, someone at the workshop suggested that “efforts should be made to create reading slots in both English and indigenous languages on radio and television programming”. In Nigeria, there is nothing impossible for citizens if they are invested in the idea and its outcome. The question to ask again is what is the state of the Reading Culture in Nigeria and which agencies are actively supporting Nigerians to read if not write?
