Person of the year:The Nigerian People

My person of the year? The Nigerian people,who are slowly,surely engaging the system frontally, asking hard and tough questions,demanding plain-truth answers from their leaders and refusing to be taken for granted as had commonly been the case before now.As the late Christopher Okigbo put it in another context, it's 'hurray for thunder!'

Bring Back the Book: Engaging President Jonathan on our terms

Bring Back the Book: Engaging Jonathan on our terms

This piece was first contributed to www.differencenews.com on December 1, 2011 

By Richard Mammah

Chinua Achebe

The formal involvement of the Nigerian President earlier in the year in a reading promotions encounter set in the mould of the ‘Bring Back the Book Campaign’ definitely gives the impression that good times may be here for the Nigerian Book once again.
An impression yes, but that also conflicts with the clearly very clumsy way the administration handled the public relations fallout of the rejection – and for a second time too – by Nigeria’s pre-eminent reading champion, Chinua Achebe, of a national honour offered him by the same Presidency.
In rejecting the award, the author of the 1958 classic, Things Fall Apart had reportedly stated that the current occupants of the Aso Rock villa had not done much in improving the socio-political and economic climate in the country as to warrant his giving the renewed offer a second look.
And while someone may be tempted to ask what a writer’s business is with the social order, politics and the economy, the appropriate response here would be to send the questioner on a Google mission to look up and read the text of a speech the same Achebe read while accepting another national honour offered him in the 1980s. To give one more clue, that treatise was aptly titled, ‘what has literature got to do with it?’
Away from treasure hunting and negatives however, this writer prefers to look at the opportunity introduced by the Goodluck Jonathan-Bring Back the Book initiative as one of those rare moments of possibility for the expansion of the place of the book in our national life. However, as with other opportunities before this one, it is being borne out that it is really more of how the system actors respond to the opportunity more than the primal intention of the original anchors that would ultimately make the difference as to how far the project can go. And we will look no further than to the history of our engagement with the book to add flesh to this thesis.
For starters, it is almost now beyond debate that the first wave of our modern experience with the book came with the proselytizing efforts of Christian missionaries. In responding to the package however, local communities soon began to explore more firmly the secular dimensions of this pre-eminent book project, tapping into the harambee spirit to pick and send the best brains from within the community through scholarship schemes to go back to the source from where those first seeds came to get all of the Golden Fleece.
This paid off handsomely for the new nation as representatives of this generation not only established very firm foundations for a book society, they also bought into the anti-colonial logic with which they later pushed off the formal domination of the colonialists.
Indeed, it is this development and deepening of the anti-colonial movement that was to provide the second opportunity for the flourishing of the book in Africa. As the new elite immersed themselves in the debate over the future of the continent, they set up sundry newspapers, wrote and published books and established political parties as a natural anchor of the enveloping ferment.
This connection between developments in the socio-political space and the growth of the book sector continued in the decade of the 1970s and 1980s when first, the indigenous publishers began to stand up to be counted and then the African book conferences and fairs, those big ticket platforms for calling attention to products and developments within the industry, were also being organized. Reaching its initial peak in the long-rested Ife International Bookfair, and moving on to Harare, Calabar, Lagos and now Cape Town, these advocacy platforms also provided opportunities for the crystallizing African books sector to firmly and frontally take its place within the increasingly maturing continent.
With the development of the book space has also come some attention to its cousin, the reader. Thus, emerging side by side, progress in one has seen associated concern for the other. In Nigeria particularly, as the authors emerged and the publishing scene deepened, we also saw commendable efforts and initiatives on the reading promotions plane.
For example, the movement into independence saw not only the revolutionary expansion of the educational space as was notably the case in Obafemi Awolowo’s Western Region, this was complemented by the aggressive library expansion and reading promotions schemes within the region with many towns playing host to well-stocked and promoted public libraries, in addition to mobile library services and the almost unhindered use of state radio, television and print media in this effort.
Not left out of the developing ferment were the newly established publishing organizations which also began to float their own readership promotions initiatives as exemplified in the Onibonoje readers club of the 1970s. At the national level, the National Library of Nigeria undertook a series of Reading campaigns, Radio Nigeria and the Nigerian Television Authority were drafted into the fray even as several other state-owned and reader-friendly print media and indeed book publishing organizations were also established and run. Notable of this was the Nigeria magazine project of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture and Ethiope Publishing Company that was set up by the government of the then Mid-Western State.
Not left out of the entire scheme and with a view to firmly establishing their own tentacles in the unfolding dynamics, professionals and other stakeholders at different levels of the book chain also organized themselves accordingly. These included the Nigerian Publishers Association, the Association of Nigerian Authors, the Nigerian Booksellers Association, the Association of Nigerian Printers, the Nigerian Librarians Association, the Reading Association of Nigeria and the Network for the Promotion of Reading.
It is within this historical frame then that the Jonathan Presidency in those early days when it needed to define for itself some thematic thrust that it believed was going to be hopefully different from that of its predecessors commenced the Bring Back the Book campaign.
An initiative which saw the President reading to an assembly of school children and other young people and bibliophiles at its commencement in Lagos, it was further expected to develop into a national book advocacy movement, calling attention to reading and indeed the book sector and its products.
Sadly however, the dream appears to have lapsed and this notably for several reasons, one of which is clearly a poverty of project conception, but another, and more important for this writer at this point is a stark absence of meaningful stakeholder response to the initiative and structural engagement of the President and his implementing team.
While someone may argue at the face value that the Bring Back the Book scheme was not in the first place designed by stakeholders and as such they should therefore not be held responsible for its multiple incapacities, the reality of the democratic project which we are incipiently engaged in now suggests otherwise.
In a democracy, there is a continuous struggle for issue elevation and resource allocation. What issues get to be addressed depends in the first place on their being put in the front burner and then on how many resources do get allocated to it. And finally, there is the issue of implementation which is again invariably helped by sustained stakeholder engagement, pressure, lobbying, tracking, monitoring and resoluteness.
It is these political variables that those who are massively benefiting from the current political order very well know and work with. Whether it is in sinister forms as securing vexatious and phony multi-billion naira waivers or ensuring that the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) does not see the light of day or even in more progressive formats as scuttling obnoxious third term ambitions and halting ill-defined subsidy removal gambits, the name of the game is: ‘stay on top of your matter!’
For many of us however, this very simple line of action does not come natural. And understandably so too. While the final word on why this is so may be left to a more discriminating sociologist to exegete, this writer however has a pet notion that somewhere between our history and culture, something has happened to the average African as to leave him massively powerless. This is the explanation for our virtual incapacity to engage the power systems in our land, even when they pass the ball to us as has unwittingly been done in the current ‘Bring Back the Book’ matter.
But all hope is not lost. At the formal inauguration of the Network for the Promotion of Reading in Nigeria at Ibadan in 1998, some of us were challenged to do something about the then sorry state of the Nigerian Book and Reading space. And we rose to the challenge and did. Spending the better part of the last six months engaging myself in about all the major book convocations and chatting with many of the stakeholders in the land, it is clear that for all of the gains secured since then, we continue to be saddled with the reality of many small ticket book convocations when we can do more together to inaugurate the one (or more) most desirable big ticket platform (s) that would provide super-space for all of us to better engage the system and build the firmer book and reading space we have long sought and desired..
Am I by this asking that we shut down or merge all existing platforms and organizations. No. But until we shed the mental togas of small space survivalism and begin to take more solidly coordinated organizational steps to confront the challenge of Nigeria’s big ticket book games, we will sadly not get to our desired success peak. This in my view is the challenge of the moment and a good place to begin is with a thorough and most critical stakeholder re-engagement of the Bring Back the Book project. So who is calling the conference?

 Mammah, author of History and Prospects of the Nigerian Book is Executive Director of the reading promotions and book advocacy watchdog, Synergy Educational.

e-books in Nigeria

In  a book I published in 2003 titled The Nigerian Books Directory and Guide, I wondered when Nigeria would be catching in on the e-books train. That is the subject of the Publishers Forum at the CORA bookfair holding in Lagos tomorrow. And I will be there.
 Details and reports to follow. Cheers.

Citizen Emmanuel Okoro

We celebrate and salute today the devotion and sense of duty of one Nigerian who has been dogged and consistent in the pursuit of things books in this land. He is Citizen Emmanuel Okoro.  Since 1997 when our paths crossed at Synergy Educational, he has remained consistent on this set course, almost never flagging nor faltering for a moment or the other.

I am particularly writing this because of a recent incident involving Emma (as we call him in the course of everyday conversation) while he was immersed in one of his book advocacy jaunts. He had set out to participate in the just ended 2011 national convention of the Christian Booksellers Association of Nigeria (CBAN) held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Having left Lagos on Tuesday, November 1 and being billed to spend all of the week at the event, I was surprised to hear him say when I called to get a status report on the Thursday of the event that he was on his way back to Lagos! I wished him a safe journey back and waited for him to return to ask why the change in arrangements.

‘Oga mi, there was really not much going on at the event. The audience was sparse and there was really nothing phenomenal in the programme to keep someone there for long’

I could identify with him. Having attended the Western Zone fair of CBAN held in Maryland, Lagos earlier in the year and noticing myself that the programme was largely non-spectacular, I put two and two and concluded that there is indeed work for people like Emmanuel Okoro to do in helping to further grow the Nigerian book space. But do the current core drivers of that space really understand this and would they make room for determined bibliophiles like our own Emma to contribute their own bit in this continuing evolution?

The next major book event in the national calendar is the CORA event holding at Freedom Park, Lagos from November 17 to 19 and by God’s grace, yours truly would be there and send out fresh reports on the event to you from there. A reading Nigeria is possible!

Frankly, let's talk about books!!!

The ABC Book clubs

Let’s talk about books!

Ten reasons why you should join us!

Those who are passionate about reading need to bond together in a social and intellectual group to:

1.  better enjoy the reading experience as part of a community of fellow readers
2. get access to books from libraries, other members and their network of friends and associates
3. help each other keep and strengthen the reading habit in a time and culture-challenged environment like ours and also serve as a voluntary peer-review structure.
4. encourage yourself and others like you to read more
5. participate in, and organize reading promotions events
6. buy good quality books at discounted rates
7. discuss your favorite books with other members
8. give back books and the reading culture to your community
9. improve your public speaking, writing and presentation skills
10. read and discuss books in a positive, non-corrupting and progressive social setting once a month

Who can join?

1. Adults resident in the environs who read

Modalities

1. Only 25 members would be accepted per club unit so applications will be considered on a first-past-the-post basis. Should there be more applications, new units would be formed.

2. Meetings to hold once a month with members taking turns to host.

3. Except otherwise agreed, meetings would be in agreed public place/hall.

4. Meeting duration would not exceed two hours per session

5.  Members would receive a monthly online newsletter

6.  Meetings would be interactive and passive membership would not work.

7. Each unit would elect not more than three leaders who would further represent them at area, state and national levels.

8. Units would be named after locations: Arepo, Ikorodu, Shogunle, etc

9. Members would read and discuss a commonly agreed book twice a year.

10. Members would benefit from seminars, conferences and workshops

Implementation logistics

1. Members would serve as resource persons in areas where they have flair or competence.
2. The full scheme of adopted and amended activities would be mutually agreed.
3. There would be annual dues, 50 percent of which would be retained by the unit.
4. Additional funds could be raised as per project demands.
5. A Quorum shall comprise three members of the unit present at a properly convened meeting
6. The Central Coordinating Office shall actively support units in the realization of all set goals and programmes.
7. Units should tap the full complement of resources available in their community.

First year Draft Annual Programme of activities for units

January

New Year reception/What did you read during the holidays?

February

Discussion time: The social impact of reading. Can readers make a difference?

March

Schools/Community outreach

April

World Book Day Celebration/Common book reading

May

Reflections: My most boring reading experience

June

Guest speaker/Presentation

July

Objections: The books I do not like reading

August

Common book reading

September

Workshop: Improving reading efficiency

October

ABC Book week activities/Schools and Community outreach

November

Flashback: The most impact-full book I have read

December

Debate: Will the book survive?

How to apply?

Intending members would pick up application forms (for an agreed sum) at unit secretariat, which preferably would be a bookshop, library or other book, educational or community centre in the neighbourhood.

For enquiries, call Richard: 07043280430 or Emmanuel: 07081405531

My Arepo bookseller

I moved house a little over two years ago from Oregun, Ikeja to Arepo, coming to join the ‘growing tribe of Lagosians who live in Ogun state!’

On settling in, I discovered a bookshop within the community and as ‘ontological species of identical plumage congregate to the nearest proximity’ (do not log-off please, it is K.O Mbadiwe, Patrick Obahiagbon’s elder brother talking!), I decided to look it up.

Straight away, I would say that I am not impressed by the range and volume of books on display. The shop only has stationeries, recommended school books, a few children’s story books, Christian and motivational texts on display. I took it a step further and asked a few neighbours too and for those who had bothered to stop by, their comments were not dissimilar.

But then, electing to look at the other side of things, I saw two things that lifted my spirit. One, a few weeks ago, to drive traffic to the shop, the bookseller had put up a banner on the main entrance to the community, advertising his shop, and second, having established and run a bookshop in Ogudu, Lagos myself, I could identify with the tenacity and courage that it takes to set up a bookshop in an essentially rural or para-urban community in today’s largely a-literate Nigeria.

I salute my Arepo bookseller but will yet get back there to engage him on the question of inadequate stock. And if you, my reader should ask me, I will report back to you on progress in this wise.

There is indeed a way to do a bookfair!

Just returned from the first day showing of the week-long LTV Lagos Bookfair event holding at Lagos Television, Ikeja. It was not funny.
Getting there, I found out I had missed out on the opening ceremonies. But then the adverts that ran most admirably for all of two months on Lagos Television neither told us there was going to be as much as an opening ceremony or on what date and time this would be!
I toured the 15 or so stands that were up and concluded that for all of the goodwill and advert support that Lagos Television was putting into the event, more could have been done and seen!
I looked for the organisers to ask what next? 'Nothing,' my informant told me, absolutely nothing until the closing ceremonies. A bookfair! No events! No sessions! Nothing!! It was evident that there was a mistake somewhere.
I left my informant and looked out for some senior member of the organising team and I found two, both LTV staffers.
'You are the ones putting this together?' 'Yes,' they replied. 'So what next?'
'Have you registered?'It was their turn to enquire. 'Yes.' I answered. 'Well, that is it, if you have finished going over the stands, then you can go.'
'I have already done that,'
Then you can go, that is all.'
'You must be kidding me, right, this is a bookfair you know, no events, no sessions, no shows...'
She got my drift and made to save face. 'Ok, by monday, we may have some events.'
'But what exactly would they be so i can plan for them?'
'I do not know."
'Ok, is there a website i can check?'
Turning to her colleague. 'Em, do we have a website?'
'Ok, he can check the LTV website.'
I took my leave.
Rerhaps I should return on Monday. If I do i would keep you my reader posted.
Great weekend.

Notice to Publishers

Stopped by at the South West zonal office of Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) the other day to make some enquiries.
Among other things, I learnt this: the Council maintains libraries in its offices in Abuja, Lagos and Kano which are open to the public and expects publishers to forward to them 5 copies of their titles. This is not to be confused with the mandatory Legal Deposit copies requested by the ISBN/National Library authorities.
Thought some follower of this blog might want to know or be reminded about this.

The best time to read

The best time to read

One of the trouble people have with reading particularly when they are out of the formal school environment is that not having examinations and the like to compel them, they try to read anytime they feel like and can find the time too. It does not work like that. In the modern world in which we live, reading like every other activity has to be scheduled. And as behavioural researchers would tell you, those things which you schedule, you are more likely to take serious. And the things you take serious are more likely to yield dividends. It is therefore important that you find your most convenient time to read and proceed to use it maximally

When you adopt this attitude, you would be saving yourself two hassles. First, you would be getting out of the trap of those who read whenever they find the time and really never find it, and second, your dedication to specified reading hours would mean that you can then add all other off-plan reading opportunities that you then find and utilize as bonus sessions.

My best reading time for example is when I am traveling (and this could simply be whilst commuting to and from work in a busy and traffic-stressed city like Lagos). Of course this is virtually impossible when you are the one driving or quite difficult when you are in the company of one or more people with whom you are burdened to sustain social talk. But even at that you would need to call up your sense of discipline and look for ‘polite breaks’ even whilst socializing knowing the value reading and precisely also, what you are reading at that time, is bringing to your entire life!

Next it is Saturday afternoon and then Sunday after church.

From time to time also, I also snatch hours after work in the evenings to do some more reading.

One other helpful tip: if you are one of those having problems presently with sustaining a reading habit, my candid advice to you is that, at this point, do not read just anything that you find. Rather, go the extra mile to seek books on the subjects and areas that you enjoy and read them. Once the habit is structured, you can then venture further a-field into other areas. How long this would take depends on the individual case scenario but you can be sure that I am available to review the details of that situation if you send a detailed off-blog mail to richard.mammah@gmail.com

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