The year ended on a positive note for the Ipaja community of Lagos State with the re-launch of its public library last Tuesday by the Special Adviser to Governor Akinwunmi Ambode on Education, Mr Obafela Bank-Olemoh.
The formerly waterlogged premises of the library has been sand-filled and the building rehabilitated and equipped with requisite furniture to make reading a pleasure for all categories of learners. The library building has various reading areas, including one for pre-schoolers, a section for the book shelf and offices for the librarians. It also has separate sets of three toilets for male and female users.
Community leaders, teachers, pupils and government workers who gathered for the launch, praised the efforts of the Ambode-led government in rehabilitating the facility for public use.
Mr Abel Badejo, pioneer chairman, Mosan Okunola Local Council Development Area (LCDA), said the effort would boost education in the area.
“It is a thing of joy for us that our governor remembered us within a short time he took over. This place when it was built was always flooded. But now it has a befitting edifice. Education is the core of development. This will boost education. The environment is inviting. The colour you gave to the place is welcoming,” he said.
President, Abesan New Town Association, Alhaji Ibrahim Giwa, urged the government to ensure that a library supervisor visits regularly to learn the challenges people go through in using the library.
Though she resides in Egbeda, Aishat Oba, a JSS3 pupil of State Comprehensive Junior College, Ipaja, said she intends to visit the library often.
“I can come here to study. It will encourage us to read and achieve a lot of things,” she said.
Mr Gbenga Adesina, who teaches Yoruba at Aishat’s school, is a regular user of the library.
“I have been coming here. Government has really tried. Unlike before, during the rains, you wont be able to access this place,” he said.
Bank-Olemoh said the rehabilitation is the beginning of more programmes in the library space of Lagos State. The Aide also spoke of plans for the other public and school libraries around Lagos.
“Our statistics let us know that close to half a million Lagosians use our public libraries. That excites us; it shows us that the average Lagosian uses our libraries. So for the next three and half years, we are going to do lots of things in our libraries. We want to increase the number to a million people. To do that, we have to upgrade our libraries. What we have done here today in just two months shows that we are highly committed to education,” he said.
Beyond libraries, Bank-Olemoh said adult learners would be able to gain literacy skills in nine months that would equate them with primary three level of education if they register with the state’s mass literacy programme.
“We are going to do a lot on adult literacy next year. Seventy-six per cent of Lagosians are literate but we still have the remaining 23 per cent that are illiterates. We intend to scale that number over the next three and half years and we will provide the materials free as well as the facilitators. It is a nine-month course that ensures that anybody that comes into the programme will be equivalent of primary student class in a primary school,” he added.
