By Segun Ayobolu
The venue was the JVM Hotel, opposite Freshland Hotel, Abacha Road, Abuja-Keffi Expressway, Nasarawa State. The day was 16th November, 2019. The event was the grand finale of ‘The Readers’ Award 2019′ organized by StandTall Africa Initiative, a Leadership Development, Education and Entrepreneurship (STAI) Non-governmental organization. In the packed hall were academics, students, and administrators of higher institutions from across northern Nigeria. The purpose was one of STAI’s activities to promote the renaissance of a reading culture among Nigerians. This particular facet of the campaign was, however, focused on inspiring and encouraging qualitative and original research works among Nigerian academics. The linkage is, of course, clear. Quality research would encourage the production of qualitative books that will, in turn, more easily attract and arrest the interest and attention of diverse categories of readers. Before, the presentation of the keynote address by Professor Yusuf M. Adamu of Bayero University, Kano (BUK), the Master of Ceremonies announced that there would be a short presentation by Mighty David Ogah.
Yours sincerely and I am sure many others in the audience expected a burly, hefty man to stride to the podium to address the audience. But no, a small, diminutive boy walked rather shyly to the front of the hall, a sheet of paper clutched in his hands. Confidently facing the hall, he began to read what turned out to be a veritable sermon on the value of books and reading, every sentence loaded with quotable gems. Even if he had not authored the short piece, the clarity and coherence with which Mighty David Ogah delivered his presentation showed that he had become well acquainted with reading even at such a young age.
His words: “My name is Mighty-David Ogah. I am six years old. I am still a boy but I am old enough to know that there is a sharp decline in the reading habit of most Nigerian students and teachers. My father always says that the educated man is that man who is widely exposed by reading, not just acquiring certificates from a school. He usually tells me that the beauty of reading is that a man can read his way out of poverty. UNICEF recently recorded that Nigeria has over 10 million out of school children. This should not just be a report to be given by journalists but a deep concern for all of us here today; the youth we don’t train today is the adult we must repair and the energy it takes to repair is greater than the energy it takes to train. Every nation must pay for something. If we fail to pay for quality education today through avid reading then we are sure to keep paying for insurgency, poverty and huge ransom for kidnappers. May we all heed the clarion call to go back to the printed pages”.
There was, of course, rapturous applause as Mighty David Ogah finished his speech and strode quietly back to his seat. If Ogah delivered his sermon in lucid prose, Asom Steve Jr. thrilled the audience with his own message on the virtues of reading in stirring poetry. His sonorous voice caressed the ears of listeners as he rendered his poem titled ‘StandTall Africa’ to a captivated audience:
“Arise Oh Africa land made of black,
Standtall Oh sons of this black soil,
And read the lines written before you,
For in printed letters lies hidden the success you seek,
Come out from your ruins of self-doubt,
Gone be the days of slavery in the chains of our once white masters,
Break out now therefore out of this which holds us bound today,
Chains of educated neglect”.
In the second stanza of the poem, Asom Steve vividly portrays the debilitating effect of neglect of education on the individual and society as a whole, as a result of a plethora of ills perpetrated by youths whose potentials are trapped by lack of education and the elevated life that good reading breeds. In his words:
“The same words that have served as the crumbling tool of our nations,
The same words that have turned Chinedu to a street tout,
And Abddulraman a Bokoharam,
Even so it has become of Tolu who’s swimming in Yahoo,
A trade that has led him to his doom”.
Then Asom turns his attention to our leaders, most of who either through sheer incompetence, lack of vision or corrupt practices that sap resources that could have gone into education admonishing them:
“Hello Mr. Politician,
Give us back our days when our schools were home,
The days our teachers taught us with smiles,
Not what we have today, Strikes upon strikes in tears
“Standtall daughters of Africa,
For readers are leaders,
Standtall sons of our black land,
For made men are book men,
And let us make our tomorrow better,
To flow like a river so nice and fine,
Just like the Nile”.
One of my most valuable take away mementos from the event was a compilation of at least 60 quotes on the virtues of books and reading by great minds across time and space compiled by the Country Director of STAI, Dr Ogah Emmanuel. I will end this piece with some of those I found most striking among these quotes:
” “An illiterate society is a luxury we cannot afford; A literate society is a legacy we cannot forfeit” – Dr. Ogah Emmanuel.
” “Books break the shackles of time – proof that humans can work magic” – Carl Sagan.
” “One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time” – Carl Sagan.
” “Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for” – Socrates.
” “From the reading of ‘good books’ there comes a richness of life that can be obtained in no other way” – Gordon B. Hinckley.
” “Never put off till tomorrow the book you can read today” – Holbrook Jackson.
” “What kind of life can you have in a house without books?” – Sherman Alexie.
” “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking”.
” “A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say” – Italo Calvino.
” “Somebody who only reads newspapers and at best books of contemporary authors looks to me like an extremely near-sighted person who scorns eyeglasses. He is completely dependent on the prejudices and fashions of his times, since he never gets to see or hear anything else” – Albert Einstein.
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