To give you an idea of the thrust of my post, read James Brady's "Books, Writers And Fun" on the Forbes.
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with over 140 million people, but Nigeria is a country where they do not read books.
Most of them do not read books, but they spend an average of $76 million monthly on GSM Recharge Cards!
The excuse for not reading books before the introduction of the GSM phones was lack of money to buy books, but we have now seen that their excuse was a LIE. They have only chosen to be ignorant of the facts of life.
What Nigerians read most are the social gossip newspapers and the very few society magazines they buy and pass around themselves. The pupils cannot avoid reading the recommended text-books and the students buy handouts from their lecturers or photocopy pirated text-books.
To know the literary culture of Nigerians, visit the few public libraries and you would be speechless. The public libraries in Nigeria look like ghost towns. There are more outdated books than new ones. The public libraries look like abandoned properties. The only functional libraries are the professional libraries run by the professional institutions where the Nigerians reading for their professional examinations throng until after the examinations. Once they have passed the mandatory examinations, they put away their text-books and handouts. Finis.
They have only studied their text-books to pass the examinations to acquire the qualifications to secure their professional positions and titular status symbols in their society.
There are over 35 million users of the GSM phones in Nigeria, but most of them are either semi-literates or intellectual illiterates.
Nigeria is a nation of talking heads hooked to their GSM phones, but with vacuous minds. Most of their telephone conversations have little or no economic benefit, except the millions of dollars spent on their phone calls and the GSM telecom operators spend the millions of dollars on their operations. But the consumers are getting poorer, because they are wasting their money on unprofitable conversations.
There are no regular literacy programs or occasions and most of the companies in Nigeria prefer to waste millions of naira on pornographic TV Reality Shows and musicals than promoting literary programs. The literary debating contests shown on Nigerian TV in the 1970s to the 1980s have disappeared and replaced by singing and dancing competitions for the ignorant and promiscuous pupils who are shown gyrating to the psychedelic music of American and Nigerian Hip-Hop singers who encourage them to have sex at random. I have never seen a musical video showing school girls or boys reading their books. What they are showing on TV are girls and boys being lured into premarital sex.
In my younger years, what I gave to my dates were books and chocolates and I never lured anyone of them to dance with me and sleep with me. I am still giving out books and spent over one hundred thousand naira to promote literacy among secondary school pupils in Nigeria. But only few people have emulated the example. They are more interested in exploiting the literacy programs for their get rich-quick schemes and scams. They go to the leading companies to sponsor their so-called reading and writing contests, but they end up spending more of the money on buying themselves new cars or getting other expensive social status symbols and soon abandon the literacy programs. Most of them are mere opportunists.
The most committed and dedicated Nigerians promoting literacy programs are Mrs. Koko Kalango of Rainbow Book Club and Mr. Olakunle Tejuoso of Glendora Bookshops in Nigeria.
Poverty is caused by illiteracy.
Only literacy can lift the over 78 million non-literates in Nigeria out of the dark abyss of ignorance and lead them into the mainstream of the 21st century.
Nigerians must spend more on books than on GSM Recharge Cards and devote more time on reading and listening to audio books than gossiping on their mobile phones.
Let us boast of the latest books we are reading and not boasting about the latest phones we have bought.
Let us stop the shameless parade of ignorance
In the childish and foolish masquerade of arrogance.
Let our works prove our worth.
