The government must exercise its power to free up tariffs and taxes on books and other reading materials
I cannot begin to tell you what reading and books have done to me. They have made me cry. I remember the tears I shed when the canes came down heavy on my back for not being able to put the letters together fast enough for one of my teachers back then. I could swear the words seemed to swim in some rivers I could not see. But once the letters came together and formed words in my mouth, they seemed to hop and dance gaily as I travelled nimbly through them library books. I became the advertisement for ‘have literacy, will travel’. Back then, though, I had no idea that what I was experiencing was the power of literacy and its counterpart, illiteracy.
My teachers had the tough duty of teaching me to read. I was not their only ward. So, the entire pack of us in the class had to measure up or be disgraced. Naturally, I was disgraced, and this is how it happened. I remember how the teacher in one of my very early classes devised the clever method of dividing the class into two: those who could, and those who couldn’t. Until I could read, I heard nothing, I saw nothing and I said nothing.
I tell you, children are sensitive. The parent or teacher who can exploit this fact for the child’s good will be richly rewarded. My teacher exploited this fact by simply separating the haves (with motivation to read) from the other haves (with motivation to sleep and play). She also explained in clear terms why she had separated the class. In other words, if you found yourself on the left side, you could read; if you found yourself on the right side of the class, you could not read. Somehow, through lack of effort, I found myself on the right side of the class.
I never knew what pain was until that day. No, I err. There was yet another instance when another teacher used an equally clever and even more effective tactic on me to learn the Lord’s prayer. He simply placed two thick canes on my desk for everyone to see and throughout the day, my tears mixed with my lesson notes. By the next day, I had learnt my lesson. I think I’ve told you about that before. There you go, I repeat myself often, right? I learnt that from my teachers too.
Anyway, as I was saying, the pain of my illiteracy was never so sharp as that day. From being put in that row of could-nots that day, I felt that I was not allowed to mix with the others who could. They were my betters because they could read. Bless my little heart, I responded to the segregation with profound sorrow and could scarcely touch my food when I got home, although I am told that by nightfall, I had recovered enough to devour my share of food, and then some.
What I am trying to say is that it did not occur to me to respond to the teacher’s tactic with hatred. At that time, the teacher was always right. Instead, I responded by sitting down to my chalk and slate, and practiced my alphabets. The rest, as they say, is history. Yes, dear, I was no more than six years old or so then; so you can imagine how deeply things could hurt. Yes, dear, that was the age you were allowed to darken the doors of a classroom then, and with good reason too.
I believe many parents would respond differently. The moneybags among us, especially those who have just come into loads and loads of money through the Nigerian system called corruption, would have raised the roof of the skies and threatened thunder and lightning over the teacher’s method. How dared him/her give their child a complex? I understand that in the developed countries, that kind of action was enough to fill the child with enough insecurity that would give his/her psychoanalyst a few years’ job security. Not so me; I was made of sterner stuff. I simply showed the teacher by learning to read and write. Since then, I have become the advertisement for proving that anything is possible, ‘if water can pass through a stone…’ I know, I know, I stole that line, but if the cap fits, who am I not to wear it?
The other day, I read that the Minister for Education lamented that the illiteracy level in Nigeria is high. I want to say categorically and clearly that the high illiteracy level of this country is the government’s own design. Half a century after independence, more than half of the country’s population still cannot read and write. It is because the national government did not want a literate population. It’s a shame really.
One of the things the new national government should have put in place upon getting independence was compulsory and free education. This is what the developed countries did, and they are now reaping the result. Instead our national government at that time left the education of the citizens to those who could struggle for it and to parents who were able. Today, the nation is the poorer for this poor sense of judgment. The result is that we have two or more generations of people who can neither read nor write and all the benefits that could have accrued from them are dying with them.
When you can read, you not only can have flights of fancy, you can say for sure when the other person is talking rubbish. I guess this is what the government never wanted. It has never, and apparently still does not want, its citizens to tell it to shut up. Frankly, I am wanting to tell the government to shut up right now but I don’t want to sleep in Kirikiri yet.
Nevertheless, I would like to remind the government that this column, and many others before and after it, have equally lamented that the government was breeding an illiterate populace by accident or design through not making reading materials tariff-free. Reading materials include books, newspapers, magazines, more books, etc. Add to that the downturn in the economy that has made many families push books to the back of the list, never to be visited. AS IT IS NOW, MOST STUDENTS CANNOT EVEN BUY THE BOOKS THEY NEED IN THE CLASSROOM.
I think that it does not help our developmental efforts to keep these reading materials under the same tariff class as other consumables that do not improve the individual. Cloths/clothes, furniture, etc., are materials that only add to the comfort of the person. Reading materials do a lot more. They free the personhood of the individual, allow him/her to cross the borders of the mind and inspect every conceivable human emotion and will. Reading helps the individual attain true freedom of spirit so that he/she can understand more about man and life.
We cannot begin to talk of developmental efforts while this large number of people remain illiterate. They constitute the untapped work-force of the country. They also constitute an army that is very dangerous indeed. Apart from the fact that they are not being helped to reach their potential, they cannot help others and they become hindrances to development.
The government must exercise its power to free up tariffs and taxes on books and other reading materials that cannot be produced in the country. More importantly, what can be produced in the country must also be encouraged through tax reliefs so that newspapers and books can be available to all. Then we can say of all Nigerians, ‘Have Literacy; Will Travel.’
