APNET, African publising and the blurring industry lines: Re-Reading Richard Crabbe

In the course of preparations for the 2012 edition of the National Reading Week in Nigeria earlier in the year which he was convening, this writer had called on a number of industry players to solicit their inputs. One such visit was to the Ikorodu, Lagos operational base of Mr. Dayo Alabi, Chief Executive of The Book Company and founding Chairman of the Nigerian Bookfair Trust (NBFT).

It was in the course of the visit that he learnt that the former Chief Executive of the African Christian Press, Accra, Ghana, Mr. Richard Crabbe would be the keynote speaker at the 2012 edition of the Nigerian International Bookfair.

Richard Crabbe. Growing up in the day as a young student of the African book sector, I had come in contact regularly with the works of two activist-professionals in the African book trade. One was my fellow countryman and founding Chief Executive of Fourth Dimension Publishers, Enugu, the late Engineer Victor Nwankwo, and the other was Crabbe. From their writings, engagements and interventions, the two men came across as very well-reasoned but dogged and committed enthusiasts for the place of the African and Africa in the global book trade. Well-read and clear-headed, both men have not only contributed immensely to the body of scholarship on the book trade in Africa, they had also risen to the topmost echelons of the sector and served as Chairmen of the African Publishers Network (APNET).

Encountering Crabbe at the Lagos Bookfair in 2012 did not also disappoint. At the event, he spoke on the subject of ‘the state of infrastructural development in Africa and the future of the book trade’ and raised issues that reveberated far beyond the venue.

Electing to speak to the subject rather than read from his already prepared speech, Crabbe was able to set the subject free and approached his theme from the point of view of where his audience presently was. He spoke on the challenges of an industry that was in the midst of re-definition; of shifting and changing roles; and the pressure that was coming from literally, everywhere; on the need to constantly be on one’s toes, innovating, changing and transforming. Indeed it is quite some time to be a player in the book sector in the mother continent!

Quoting copiously from data released by the African Development Bank (ADB) on the prognosis for Africa by the year 2060, he affirmed that the indicators were quite upbeat with overall infrastructure and literacy rates expected to rise astronomically even as the population doubled. Underscoring that this scenario did indeed open up fresh vistas for particularly book sector professionals, he wondered how many in the hall  were going to take up the challenge of ensuring that they developed strong but flexible, sturdy and resilient,  assured but malleable, fundamentally grounded but creatively-astute and consistent but innovation-embracing systems that would profit maximally from this shifting scenario.

Even more frankly, Crabbe would go on during question time to break it down further. ‘This was indeed a different time and every one needed to claw his way around as best as the situation demanded.’ He counselled emphatically on the overall need to be open and amenable to change, affirming that a lot of solutions to navigating the challenge of the present may be lying in the hands of some young, untested and just-out-of-school entrants who on account of their being viscerally involved with the emergent generation may be better placed to connect with them on the primary level and design their own book needs and solutions.

Going further, Crabbe invited practitioners to see the continually changing trends in the book sector as less of a threat per se, but more of a challenge that needed to be embraced headlong. The times, he reasoned, were introducing shifting roles for everyone; with booksellers being invited to be content aggregators, with authors being far more assertive and personally taking charge of the ‘numbers’ side of the business; with  publishers increasingly being tasked to let go of some or more of the ‘global rights management’ they once took for granted; and librarians being pushed to rely more and more on electronic and not print book solutions in the course of their work with library users. With a lot of these adjustments being initiated, encouraged and demanded by the neo-emergent, and clearly unstoppable technologies of the day, the path of wisdom, he counselled, was for practitioners to continue to more confidently engage and interface with these technologies with a view to not only integrating them in their operations, but to get a grip of the better side of them, maximise their potential for reaching the new generation of readers,  and go on to break even newer grounds with them.

As APNET clocks two decades in its work of growing the African book space, it is only fitting that we pause at this moment to salute the work of pioneers and veterans like Nwankwo and Crabbe. Through their resilient contributions to championing the course of the African book, they have helped in giving further fillip to the sector and its issues. What remains therefore is for us to continue to keep faith with the global dream and grow the sector further in such a way that ‘the labours of our heroes, past and present,’ shall not be in vain.

Not one to leave his audience gaping without practical solutions, Crabbe in the self-same ‘Lagos Declaration’ spoke on how this can be best done, charging the profession’s current elders to be open enough in receiving and integrating novel inputs from younger and emergent professionals who in his view were clearly more abreast, not only with the new technologies in question but even more fundamentally also, with the new consumer.

This is clearly very  wise talk from an ‘elder’ in the business, and notably too, from one who – as we say in these parts - has seen it all. This writer very clearly then has no hesitation in identifying with, and indeed, ‘retweeting’ the kernel of Crabbe’s thesis for the maximal benefit of all stakeholders.

Another reason why Crabbe’s point makes a lot of sense is that it answers the creeping discomfort that had come to be introduced into the overriding framework of operational roles and relations within the industry. Here is how it plays out. When two players within the book sector meet for the first time and the inevitable business and social talk ensues, they ‘explain’ themselves in line with one of the compartments that the industry had grown to live with However this is not exactly guaranteed today with players increasingly finding themselves wearing more than one of the hitherto relatively exclusive labels that existed. Thus we now have Publisher/Editor, Bookseller/Librarian or Literary Agent/Book Scout/Editor/Publisher all rolled into one. And the lines are further blurring.

 This shifting delineation is also affecting association relations within the sector. Thus going forward, we now have players who take up and play multiple roles in the various associations or going on, we may even have more of the combined association frameworks as say the ‘association of booksellers and publishers.’ While this like every other change is sure to come with its own stresses, one of the side benefits that it promises is that it would address some of the tension existing between say for example, publishers and booksellers over issues like alleged role encroachment and off-schedule sales returns.

And what would be the fate of those players who insist that ‘the new technology is still a far-off and non-third world phenomenon?’ For this category, the answer is simple: look at the ADB report referenced by Crabbe and you will see that heads or tails, this new reality has virtually dawned on us. That dear reader, is globalization 102. 

Associated with this is the need to deal with what this writer considers to be one of the most fundamental imperatives facing the African Publishers network at this time, and one which may have come as a result of taking our eyes off the ball.

This is because from what we know and understand of both the spirit and work of APNET greats like Nwankwo, Crabbe and Woeli Deukutsy, the organisation was one that was not only expected to always remain at the cutting edge of trends and innovation in the book sector, but also one that would continue to tap into the richest dynamics of progress that the industry could find.

This much came across to this writer as he sat with late Victor Nwankwo in his study/office at Enugu in the concluding years of the decade of the 90s as well as from the treatises on the subject penned by the good man and other founding fathers of APNET.

At the core of the vision then, was a necessary - if not compulsive - emphasis on intellectual rigour, creativity, innovation and networking. Even when there necessarily was politicking, it was healthy, measured and most progressive, as it was built upon – and not expected to depart from - these quintessential principles and values that players and stakeholders were continually being challenged to buy into.   

As I see it then, one of the critical challenges facing APNET in this 20^th year, is to basically return to the spirit of this founding engagement. This is moreso when we now have – as enunciated by Crabbe in the paper under reference – a technology-dominated book space that - for good or otherwise – allows far more room for dissonance than convergence.

In practical terms then, I would be advocating an APNET which places a lot of emphasis on the re-development of the organisation’s intellectual space, with a view to ensuring that its lead journal, the APNET Review, is further strengthened and energised to very fully lead the debate around issues in the development of the book trade in the continent. There may also be the need for the establishment of a formal APNET Academy or - more like it – a B to B collaboration with a number of leading institutions in the continent with a view to developing and teaching more contemporarily, industry-relevant discourses, and training well-fitted and era-sensitive junior, medium and high net-worth personnel in the sector.

And then my final point. That there is a blurring of lines in the book’s landscape today is no longer news. What is at issue is how we are responding to it. Would this response - as it also has to do with APNET now - also require an adjustment either in the name of the organisation or its definition modalities to encompass some of the other players that have now ‘blurred into’ hitherto exclusive ‘publishing’ territories? Or do we continue to put our foot very strongly down that ‘publishing is publising is publishing is publishing!’

Not being an APNET leader, this is clearly not my call to make. But be rest assured that the thought is only being shared in the spirit of basically reviewing how far the APNET journey has come in the past two decades and how much further it could yet go in the years that follow. To provide more fillip for my thought, I will draw the reader’s attention to three realities of a near similar-frame.

The first has to do with the fact that in a number of territories in Africa and indeed the world over, there currently exist joint associations of sorts in the book trade, including in some instances, joint associations of publishers and book sellers. Are they working together in tandem? Does it look that they may be in a better position – conceptually at least – to better handle the challenge of blurring lines, having already been enmeshed in it?

Second, there are instances in our recent history where efforts at establishing even more dissonance may not have fully worked out or served its purpose. One example here may be the establishment of new associations to promote the interests of ‘non-ficion authors.’ With the benefit of hindsight now, what may have been needed could have been the expansion of the mandate of the existing ‘fiction-dominant’ national writers association to incorporate and accomodate this new focus.

And third, is the example of the founding origins of the book as we know it, where - in the pre-Gutenberg era - the bookseller was literally also the publisher, the librarian and the printer of the few books that were in existence? Did I just hear someone say Déjà vu?

Happy birthday, APNET. Longer may you live. Amen.

Richard Mammah can be reached at richard.mammah@gmail.com

       

Okonjo-Iweala: Gains of a loss

Now that the battle has been won and lost, it is time to do a post-mortem. What did every side in the abortive bid by Nigeria’s Finance/Coordinating Minister (of the Economy) really get in the keenly contested race to clinch the World Bank presidency?

First is President Barrack Obama, the World Bank institution and the victorious Kim.

In a US election year where the incumbent president faces a tough call on all sides, one more foreign policy success is a decided plus. However, going beyond this is the need for the Obama Presidency, the World Bank institution and the victorious Kim to heed the very loud protests of the ‘rest of the world’ that is growing more and more uncomfortable with Pax Americana. As history has showed us over time, even the most impregnable empire bult by men ultimately goes into decline.

The challenge before America therefore is whether it will voluntarily engineer the invitable power-sharing reforms that the times call for or be compelled to do so with of course greater costs. While the choice of the Korean-American Kim, in the first place suggests that the liberal wing of the foreign policy elite currently in charge in Washington remains aware of how the world sees it post-Iraq, the trouble however is that the Kim option may have been too little, too late.

Next would be the lessons of the loss for Okonjo Iweala herself, Nigeria’s President Jonathan and our own foreign policy elite. Rather than the current tendency to see the loss in a deterministic mould as a continuation of ‘the impregnable superpower conspiracy’ or in the equally obtuse consolatory and fact-spinning framework that ‘we gave as much a fight as they gave and the world order has definitely changed for good,’ this reviewer would prefer to see the loss for what it was: the outcome of very poor strategic planning ab initio.

Let me explain. When the news first hit the wires that Okonjo-Iweala was a decided candidate for the position, the word from her, her handlers and the government was between denial and mum. This was an initial mistake which communicated to the world and indeed the Americans that strong as Iweala’s credentials were, she and Nigeria were indeed not ‘sure’ candidates!

For a position that everyone had known (five years ago!) was going to be vacant this month, and which Nigeria’s Okonjo-Iweala was in a pole position to occupy given her placement in the World Bank system amidst other pluses, that error is a grave comfirmation that our foreign policy apparatchik is sadly no longer in the mould of the valiant warriors and planners that  against greater ‘cold war’ odds, literally secured the decolonization of Angola, Mozambique, Guineau Bissau, Cape Verde and Zimbabwe, and in record time too!

The unfortunate foreign policy faux pas was to be taken to a higher level when despite the glaring fact that America and her friends were going to ultimately carry the vote, we decided to take the rather antagonistic approach of confronting and not lobbying Uncle Sam! Pray, what point were we intent on making? And at what costs?

Matters of cost raise the other issue about how really inadequately, the campaign and indeed the affairs of the nation continue to be run. Rather than focus on the only realistic winning card in the game, namely, pressuring President Obama from publicly naming and endorsing an American choice which he was politically--bound to back to the end if he did, or in failing to get this, proceed to ceaselessly keep up the pressure on America and the American choice to voluntarily pull out of the race - as the third contender, Ocampo reportedly did – we preferred to endorse and despatch all kinds of low-weight lobby teams – at of course collosal costs to this poor third world country -  to junket the globe and get us the votes which only one man, America’s President Barrack Obama held!!

Compounding the strategy crisis  is an initial tragedy of value. A friend who served in the top echelopns of the Obasanjo presidency had remarked to me in an airport-room chat years ago that ‘richard, one of the shocking disclosures I have made in government is the almost total absence of rigour in the decision-making process.’ This much was brought to play in the current situation under reference.

Let us play back the tape. In April 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan was elected for a four yearm term in office. Having promised to hit the ground running, Nigerians were encouraged when he soon after the election proceeded on a one-week-retreat to the hilly ranges of the Obudu Ranch Resort in a manner reminiscent of second-term American presidents moving to Camp David ahead of constituting and making public their cabinet. But Nigeria is no America and this President did not have the discipline to properly hang a ‘men at work’ sign on his door and so Obudu became another carnival.

Even after the Obudu fiasco and a team was eventually put together several weeks after his return to Abuja, the nation yet had to wait many other weeks for the single super-minister-nomineee that the president was counting on to drive the transformation agenda’ who you may have guessed is also our own Okonjo-Iweala.

Now to say that the task at hand for any leader in Nigeria today is not massive is to simply lie. It is. But it is even more puzzling that just  six months into the ‘strong woman’ settling into tackling this massive challenge, the nation and her quizzingly lean resources have being mobilized and deployed with neither rigorous analysis nor hint of caution into winning for her this clearly elusive and moreso essentially personal trophy!

For Iweala herself, the lesson if she would see it as dispassionately as she should, is all too clear. Madam, this nation has given you much and could have given you the World Bank presidency were it in our power to do so. But the nation and its people are now asking that beyond rhetoric, you should give them a few things.

One, you are a super-minister in a system that many Nigerians believe is yet the problem and not the solution. Being a super-minister is not just an ego-ride and is not also just about the access that guarantees the capacity to get the whole nation behind you as you prosecute your own personal career objectives as has just been displayed. More than this it demands that you change your wardrobe and get into grease and sand-attuned overalls.

If you have not been properly briefed by now, we will proceed to help you see yourself as many Nigerians see you. Indeed, the Nigerian people do not dislike you and would on an even day, back your strengths and guts where they are well-channeled. And rather than the ‘protestations of personal innocence’ you were making in the heat of the fuel subsidy fiasco, it is this ‘to whom much is given’ scenario that accounted for much of the negative bile that followed you and your government’s handling of the first phase of the fuel subsidy removal. 

But that they fought you on that very badly handled policy-correction process does not mean they will not back you when you now stand up to work for, and be seen as working in their interest.

One such recent example is on how your recent campaign and sad loss was handled. Almost to a man, and even when there was no real stake for them other than the emotional attachment of having ‘one of our own up there,’ they supported your bid and ignored the deeper reality that our lean resources were being deployed to pursuing it - without an initial budgetary allocation and almost without caps! Even for analysts like us who had seen through the gaffes and knew your bid was a still-born one, we out of personal courtesy tinged with a dose of national interest would not discuss it until now.

And so this is the message that the people would want to pass over to you. Madam minister, the battle for the World Bank presidency is over. You could have made it but you did not. However, since all things work together for good,’ you should see in this loss the fact that your current assignment as a minister handling very critical roles in the government requires even stronger attention, drive and action.

For example, we have heard you address the nation on the drawbacks of the present system where government players at different levels dangerously draw down on the treasury without any scant regard for tomorrow. Can you intensify this message and find practical ways to halt this abberant practice. The CBN governor is I believe in sync with you on this and I dare say that organised labour, civil society, the media, the masses and even the President (at least nicodemously) too. Can you be a more vibrant champion for this most deserving national crusade given that it would give a strong push to the imperative of expenditure-tracking at all levels. And this is not without precedent given the experience in the Obasanjo era when your former deputy, Nenadi Usman, regularly released data on allocations to different tiers of government.

You have also talked of other laudable change initiatives as the need for port reforms, the proper diversification of the economy, fighting corruption and a smaller and more attuned government bureaucracy. We agree with you on these and wonder why with your work so clearly cut out for you, you wanted to abandon your silent backers in this fight and ‘check out’ once again in the first place? Or have you not seen how long it takes for the system handlers to permit ‘one good person’ (like your good self now) to come up close to, and even join them there at the top where the opportunity cost to build or ruin Nigeria in any dispensation is decided?

Finally Doc, like many other Nigerians, I do believe that Nigeria is a great nation that has been so gravely abused. I also believe that this abuse is not irreversible and I see two critical segments that would get us to our promised land. One is visionary, nation and people-oriented policies; and the other is a hard-working, disciplined and focussed leadership. This is not the day to talk policy. But I have followed your story for well over a decade now and am personally satisfied that you fit into the leadership mould that we are talking about. I want to also assure you that, like the Lord told Elijah, you are not alone in this standing. ‘There are 7000 others that have not bowed their knees to Baal.’ So be encouraged, and continue to do your own bit. We shall overcome very soon.

Betty Abah tells it to the king

Poet, journalist and environmental activist, Betty Abah is on a new mission.
Following the publication of her debut collection of poems, Sounds of Broken Dreams, the University of Calabar graduate of English and Literary Studies has now released a second collection of poems, Go Tell our King.
The book which contains poems that draw from her involvement with the media, women’s rights, political advocacy and her indigenous Idoma locale was first published by Xlibris Corporation in the United Kingdom with a Nigerian reprint by Mace Books.
Copies can be ordered from thedifferencenews@yahoo.com

Feb 13: General Murtala Muhammad and my world of books

School made an impact on this writer and notably too, the head-teacher at R.C.M Primary School, Koko in the then Mid-West State, in the decade of the 1970s. He was Mr. Aiyemobuwa and I remember good old H.M today for his very clean and most legible hand-writing. Such fine print! For a long time, I wanted to write like him. The verdict of the jury came out a long time ago: I did not make the mark.

But school was not always about fine writing. Before this had come desire, the sheer basic desire to wake up in the morning with the older kids, pick up your own slate and chalk, wear those magical clothes and go with them to the place they disappeared to daily, only to come back with stories of the exploits that had gone on behind you. But Papa kept saying you were not of age, as evidenced by the fact that your hand could not overstretch your head onto your ear. Now that was not fair!

Papa's transistor radio. Next to the copies of Observer and Daily Times that came into the house now and again (later Drum magazine was added), the small battery-powered gadget was our authoritative window to news of the world. And it was on it on that fateful February 13 day that we heard news of the Dimka coup and the tragic death of the second Nigerian leader that I grew up to be conscious of: General Murtala Ramat Muhammad. 

I remember that day as if it was yesterday, as Papa lay on the reclining chair under the lemon tree and was himself jolted by the martial music that was heralding news of the coup d’etat in faraway Lagos. Quiet, he shouted. And from both his tone and facial expression, we all knew something was amiss. We had passed that road before. With General Gowon in July 1975.

Even more than tales of coups and coupists, a writing culture begins with a story culture. For this writer, it goes back to the occasional visits of Olemajogume, the wizened old man, who would call on Papa now and again and on those visits ask me how school was going.

excerpted from 'Nigerian Book and Print Culture: Reflections of a participant-observer' by Richard Mammah (unpublished)

Building on the reading momentum

The National Reading Week as we conceive presently - and please do feel free to make any inputs and suggestions to improve this schedule - would involve a week of activities in support of the reading culture in Nigeria.
The dates are April 23-29 (and this incorporates the UNESCO World Book Day) and the theme is 'the joy of reading.'
On Day 1, Monday, April 23, we plan an opening event, an 'authors/celebrities reading colloquium.'
For Days 2-4, April 24-26, we plan a training workshop for reading teachers/instructors at the primary and secondary school levels with resource persons to be drawn from the Reading Association of Nigeria, faculties of education, etc.
Days 5-7 are for joining events convened by like-minded individuals, groups and organisations. Provided the input is about reading, we will adopt it in the overall format. Some other organisations that are planning their own activities in this mould include Options Bookshop, Ibadan and Debonair Bookshop, Lagos which are both planning events for their shops on Saturday, April 28. In addition, the writer Chuma Nwokolo would be hosting a reading at Asaba another writer/publisher, Dilibbe Onyeama is likely to host another in Enugu.
 Thanks so much for your support and encouragement.

Please direct enquiries to: richard.mammah@gmail.com

National Reading Week: An event whose time has come

When we commenced arrangements to inaugurate a functional and rejuvenated National Reading Week programme several weeks back, we were not too sure of how everything would play out. Overall, we still are not.

But we are encouraged.

We are encouraged that from across the length and breadth of this country, people are standing up to be counted. From Ibadan to Asaba, Enugu to Abuja the groundswell of interest and support has been most remarkable.

Volunteers are signing up across the country, schools are taking up their spots in the motivational schools segment of the package and publishers are throwing in their bit.

The bookselling community has also been wonderful. Several are, at their own expense, organizing joining events that would help make the splash and call in the sustained attention to things books that is at the core of the event.

We would equally not forget the reading teachers and literacy instructors that are playing a major role in the activities for the year. They have truly been most wonderful.

The dates once again are April 23 to 30 and the breakdown of activities include a readers/celebrities/students reading colloquium, a training workshop for reading instructors/teachers, motivational sessions at school assembly grounds, an online story-writing project and reading sessions at bookshops and community centers

Which now leaves us with you, yes you. There is some place for you in the entire programme and the best way for you to find this is to send us a mail ASAP. Use this line: richard.mammah@gmail.com

Thank you for being there for us, for our nation and our people in these times where very clearly, the reader is king. You are most welcome.

Lawal-Solarin: Lessons from the fathers

One of my mentors in the book business is the Chairman of Literamed Publications, Ikeja, Otunba O.M Lawal-Solarin. .

I first met him in 1996, when as a member of the executive of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos, we were holding meetings on several matters relating to the book and reading culture in Nigeria at his Alausa office. Later, we went on to work with him in the reading promotions organisation, Synergy Educational and other related book endeavours and I have made it a point of duty to remain in touch with him since then.

A Renaissance personality in every sense of the word, Lawal-Solarin is one Nigerian who could disagree with you at a level but yet work with you on another. Even when we had divergent views at a time over the modalities for re-energising the bookfair movement in Nigeria, he still kept the door open and would continue to discuss and work with us on the bigger picture of doing everything possible to grow the book trade and reading culture in the country.

In the course of over two decades relating with him, he has remained his affable best and committed to the promotion of best practices in the book trade.

Since those early 1969 days when the trained pharmacist ventured to publish the nation's first indigenous pharmaceutical index, Medipharm, Lawal-Solarin has not looked back on his commitment to books and the book trade. Today, Literamed not only publishes many of the traditional school texts that yet sustain a lot of the operations of the major publishers in the country, it also publishes the popular Lantern Books readers that generations of readers continue to savour and delight in.

My latest meeting with him took place this week and in the course of discussions, he once more unveiled his heart on what he considers the 'goldmine that remains untapped in the Nigerian books landscape.

'Richard, if only government will be faithful to implementing its own National Book Policy. The policy says that government should work towards ensuring that text books are written and published by Nigerian professionals and made available to children in the primary and secondary school levels. Now can you imagine what boost the educational sector and indeed the economy would receive if only four text books each are provided for the 25 million children at the primary school level. That would be 100 million books and it would impact every bit of the book chain. But we are not doing that.'

At this meeting also, Lawal-Solarin touched on another point of inspiration that he had as he grew up. It had to do with his having to spend some time in an intellectual community in the U.K where books and discussions around ideas were the staple. It was an atmosphere that rubbed off on him most thoroughly, and which lifted him far above the pedestrian inclinations and dispositions of many of his contemporaries.

'Richard, that time and encounter made such an impact on me that has continued till date. Those many hours spent, discussing ideas of different hues and endless streams of topics amidst a sea of books was indeed something else. It helped shape me into what I am today and I am glad for it.'

That is vintage Lawal-Solarin. Insightful. Perceptive. Expansive. With men like this, the Nigerian book sector and indeed the nation would be better for it. Do have a great day, Sir.

Last line: More individuals and organisations are standing up to be counted in the Nigerian National Book Week holding from April 23-29, 2012. You too can and should be involved.