READING APARTHY AMONG NIGERIAN YOUTHS

BY

EGUNJOBI R. A. Ph. D

COLLEGE LIBRARIAN,

ADEYEMI COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, ONDO.

BEING THE TEXT OF A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE ADEYEMI COLLEGE OF

EDUCATION, ONDO, SPECIAL LECTURE (SERIES 08) HELD ON 19TH

NOVEMBER, 2014.

Concept of Reading

Reading is as old as the system of communication among humans

in the form of writing and information storage. The history of

information storage formats dates back to writings on clay

tablets and parchments through the period of Gutenberg

technology invention which brought about the production of

books and up till now, which is the period of digitization and

cloud storage. Whatever information is written and stored is

meant to be retrieved in the future and read. It is through

writing and storage of such information, that generations in

the past were able to pass on their knowledge to generations

after them. Thus writing, information storage and reading are

interrelated.

Reading is an important aspect of human life. It is a way of

life. Reading makes you who you are. It shapes your

personality and identity, just like other experiences. You

become a fuller, more rounded person when you read. Reading

makes you learn and grow; it makes you to experience, to

empathise, to understand, to marvel, to wonder, to laugh and

to cry. It makes you to live other lives in other places and

times. Through reading you learn things that will help you in

your daily life (Anonymous). Reading is the foundation of much

enjoyment in life and is closely related to vocational

efficiency and success in life. Students and employees in

every field need to read to keep abreast of what is happening

in their fields (Aina, Ogungbeni, Adigun, & Ogundipe, 2011)

Because of this importance, several notable quotes have

centred on reading. The following are a few of these quotes:

1. "Once you learn to read, you will be forever free." —

Frederick Douglass

2. "The things I want to know are in books. My best friend

is the man who'll get me a book I [haven't] read." —

Abraham Lincoln

3. "The more that you read, the more things you will know.

The more you learn the more places you'll go." — Dr.

Seuss

4. "You may have tangible wealth untold. Caskets of jewels

and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be — I

had a mother who read to me." — Strickland Gillilan

5. "To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that

is spelled out is a spark." — Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

6. "There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's

loot on Treasure Island." — Walt Disney

7. "There is no substitute for books in the life of a

child." — May Ellen Chase

8. "Today a reader, tomorrow a leader." — Margaret Fuller

9. "A book is a gift you can open again and again." —

Garrison Keillor

10. "There is no frigate like a book, to take us lands

away" — Emily Dickinson

11. "Reading should not be presented to children as a

chore or duty. It should be offered to them as a precious

gift." — Kate DiCamillo

12. "Books make great gifts because they have whole

worlds inside of them." — Neil Gaiman

If reading is so important a human activity, what then is

reading? Reading could be described in many ways, so there are

various definitions of reading. Wikipaedia (2013) define

reading as

i. a complex cognitive process of decoding symbols in order

to construct or derive meaning (reading comprehension)

ii. a means of language acquisition, of communication, and of

sharing information and ideas. Like all language, it is a

complex interaction between the text and the reader which

is shaped by the reader’s prior knowledge, experiences,

attitude, and language community which is culturally and

socially situated.

These definitions contain some important variables like

decoding to derive meaning, communication and sharing of

information and ideas. When you read you put symbols together

to derive meaning and through that somebody communicates with

you or share ideas with you. Leipzig (2001)) further

explained that reading is a multifaceted process involving

word recognition, comprehension, fluency, and motivation.

Reading is making meaning from print. It requires that we:

Identify the words in print – a process called word

recognition

Construct an understanding from them – a process called

comprehension

Coordinate identifying words and making meaning so that

reading is automatic and accurate – an achievement called

fluency

As noted by Ujah-Peter (2014), reading is a continuous self-

education. Most of the time, when the word reading is

mentioned, the mind quickly goes towards the book. This is due

to the fact that in the days before the present digitization

age, the book has been the main medium of written

communication. Generally, it is not only when you pick up a

book to read. Reading could occur in several ways. According

to anonymous authors:

“I’m reading when I check my email, I’m reading while I download songs, I’m

reading when I sort my bills from the ones I must pay now to the ones that can wait

a little longer. The act of reading is an everyday activity. The act of taking time out to

read the story behind the recipe, the description of the engine space, the context of

the game (eg, in Alan Wake you collect manuscript pages and reading them

enhances the context of the game, and may also provide hints as to what may be

coming up shortly in the game-play).”

“I read while I’m driving, not just street signs and maps but also the behaviour of the

cars/drivers around me – are they going to pass or not? I’m also reading fuel gauges

and speedos to provide added context to my driving.”

Agreed, when we do all these we read, but ‘reading’ in this

context means creating time to read the work of some authors

whether to add to our academic knowledge on some topical

issues, or to read a work of fiction for our relaxation or

recreation or simply picking up a newspaper or magazine to

read. A very relevant question in this case is, ‘how many of

us will voluntarily pick up a book and determine to read it

from the first to the last page?’ This talks about apathy.

What is Reading Apathy?

Apathy is most commonly defined as lack of feeling, emotion,

interest, or concern. It is a state of indifference, or the

suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement,

motivation, and/or passion. An apathetic individual has an

absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social,

spiritual, philosophical and/or physical life and the world.

However, apathy is something that all people face in some

capacity (Wikipaedia, 2013). Apathy in relation to reading is

essentially lack of interest in or concern for or passion for

reading. It is a state of indifference to reading. In the

contemporary Nigerian society, reading is perceived to be

“unfashionable” as many young people are either addicted to

the home video or the social media. On the contrary children

in other lands are saying "So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we

pray, go throw your TV set away. And in its place you can

install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall." (Quotable quotes—

Roald Dahl ) As noted by Ujah-Peter (2014), Nigerians show

lack of interest and apathy towards events like Book fairs,

Art and Book Festivals, Book Expo as many Nigerians find it

difficult to make out time out of their ‘’busy schedule’’ to

attend these kinds of events and savor the arrays of books on

display. This is a clear indication of the fact that most

Nigerians do not place much value on books and reading. Book

shops are rarely patronized by most Nigerians and libraries

are seen as a place for those studying for examinations and

researchers. This typically describes the level of interest of

an average Nigerian towards books and reading.

                                                               

                                                               

                                                               

        Who is a Youth?

The simple dictionary definition of youth is: (a) the

condition of being young; the appearance, freshness, vigor,

spirit, etc.; characteristic of one who is young; the time of

being young; early life: His youth was spent on the farm; (b)

the period of life from puberty to the attainment of full

growth; adolescence; the first or early period of anything.

In some other sense, “Youth” is best understood as a period of

transition from the dependence of childhood to adulthood’s

independence and awareness of our interdependence as members

of a community. Specifically, the parameters of age and

education/employment are also used as basis for definition.

Using age to define “youth”, the UN considers a youth to be a

person between the ages of 15 and 24 years and this definition

has been adopted by UNESCO as the universal definition for

statistical consistency across regions. If we on the other

hand use education and employment as basis for definition, it

is a period between the age where an individual leaves

compulsory education, and the age at which he/she finds

his/her first employment. Whatever definition we chose to

adopt; the period of youth generally falls within the

schooling and developmental period of a child. The larger part

of this period falls within the primary and secondary

schooling days. This is a period when the child is forming his

own way of behaving, thinking as well as his own way of

perceiving life. Thus, it is a time to be exposed to the right

information that will assist in moulding him into a complete

and useful citizen of the society. Unfortunately, this is the

time an average Nigerian is denied access to such information

in a handy way. He himself goes further to compound the

problem by counting reading an irrelevant exercise.

The Problem

Someone once said ‘if you want to hide something for an

average Nigerian, hide it in a book’. Another experience of a

colleague also goes to illustrate this. The colleague went to

a technician workshop to repair his vehicle. With him was a

book in which he kept five one thousand naira notes. While

reading the book, the technician finished his work on the

vehicle and the owner left forgetting the book he was reading.

By the time he remembered, the book it was too late for him to

go out. Of course the book was left in the open in front of

the workshop. He went back the other day to find the book wet

with dew but the money inside intact. This story demonstrates

the lack of interest that our society has for reading.

Readers have always been described as leaders, it is also

worthy of emphasis that if we do not produce readers, we

cannot get leaders. The problem of low reading habit of

Nigerian youth has even caught the attention of government.

This made the President of Nigeria, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, to

launch the ‘bring back the book’ campaign 2011, with the aim

of re-awakening Nigerians on the importance of reading.

The fact that Nigerians generally have low reading culture is

well documented. The Daily Independent, April 8, 2014 while

featuring a piece on this all important topic noted that

“reading, whether for pleasure or for academic purpose, is an

essential habit that forms the bedrock of greatness in

everyone, regardless of age, gender or status is hardly

disputed. However, imbibing it has not always been as

widespread as accepting its importance. The media and the

general public had many occasions lamented the poor reading

culture among Nigerians as well as the disappearance of public

libraries. Authors and publishers often cried aloud about the

problem of piracy in the country, and the apathy of Nigerians

towards reading. Reading, which was common among Nigerian

students, youths and even adults in the past, is gradually

being eroded.

In those days, parents while going out on weekends will pass

through the public library to get their children engaged in

reading, this is fast fading away. Many opined that the case

had almost gone beyond remedy and others concluded that this

accounts largely for the poor quality of education in our

public schools evidenced by the poor results coming out from

WAEC in recent years (Ujah-Peter, 2014).

Human capital development in a knowledge driven economy

Nigeria presently runs a centralized control economy where a

large part of the economic system is controlled by a

centralized power (a federal government) depending on the

possession of a very large amount of valuable resources

(Gemma, 2014). Of course that is the situation with virtually

all developing economies. On the contrary, the world is

gradually moving from a commodity based economy to a knowledge

based economy. The term also known as knowledge driven economy

is an indication of the recognition of the importance of

knowledge in wealth creation. Knowledge has been recognised as

the driver of productivity and economic growth and wealth

creation (Organization for Economic Co-Operation and

Development (OECD),1996; Businesscasestudies.co.uk, 2014)

Of course there is no knowledge without information. The

import of this is that developed countries round the world now

depend on their human capital which is “the stock of

knowledge, habits, social and personality attributes,

including creativity, embodied in the ability to perform

labour so as to produce economic value”. It could also been

seen as the knowledge, talents, skills, abilities,

experience, intelligence, training, judgment, and wisdom

possessed individually and collectively by a population which

forms the total capacity or a form of wealth of the people

(Wikipedia 2014). This is the definitely the wealth a nation

has to compete in the global economy.

Source- www.gopixpic.com

Nigerian has a very large population and we should be labour-

surplus country as the abundant human resource available is a

tangible capital resource. However, we can only transform this

to wealth through knowledge. Of course acquisition of

knowledge and skills is through exposure to facts and

information and one of the ways to expose the individual to

knowledge is reading. The questions arising from this

situation are how do we develop our human capital without

proper exposure to education? And then how does Nigeria

compete in the global economy successfully with human capital

development?

How did we find ourselves in this situation?

Several factors have been identified as contributing to the

apathy an average Nigerian will demonstrate towards reading as

well as the prevalent low reading culture among Nigerian

youths. These include but not limited to the following:

lack of adequate awareness on importance of reading

inadequate library facilities,

poor access to books and other reading materials, among

other factors.

low level of computer literacy among citizens.

the distractive and wrong application of information and

communication technology device

high cost of books.

However, for the purpose of this paper, these will be

discussed under the following subheadings:

lack of adequate awareness on importance of reading

Oral tradition of African (Nigerians)

Parental indifference

Inadequate library facilities and services

Drowsy book industry

Information technology culture

1. Oral tradition of Africans

Africans generally come from oral background. Our cultural

material and tradition was transmitted orally from one

generation to another. We believed more in oral transmission

of information as most of our traditional literature was

transmitted verbally. Africa, the cradle of humanity, where

the oral culture has been used for thousands of years to pass

on knowledge, has always been imagined illiterate before the

arrival of missionaries and colonial masters Some authors

believed that prior to the advent of the colonial masters,

Africans did not have a system of writing but pass down

information orally. Knowledge was passed from elders to the

young through storytelling, songs and drama. Much like we seat

in front of our television today to hear the news, Africans

listened to stories from a storyteller. So by nature,

Nigerians being Africans were not cut out as writers and

readers (wordpress.com, 2006). Whether we agree with this

notion or not, this still surfaces in our culture till today.

Of course we were later on caught up in the secondary oral

culture. This explains why it is easier for an average

Nigerian youth to sit by and watch a 7 hour story line on

video but will find it difficult to read five pages of a book

in a day. The general feeling of an average Nigerian is that

reading is meant for academic or school work. They hardly see

reading as a form of pleasure, fun and recreation.

2. Inadequate awareness on importance of reading

Oladunjoye (2012) while corroborating Spiegel (1980),

Poindexter & Prescott (1986) Hartman & Nelson (1989) and

Udosen, 2004) asserted that studies have shown reading has no

recognisable position in schools in Nigeria as little or no

direct reading instruction is given but it is only

incorporated in the language curriculum. In a study by

Anigbogu (2006), it was discovered that some undergraduate

students feel reading is no fun. Some of them only study more

during the exam period and for tests while others feel bored

reading their texts. Bemoaning the same situation,

Nigerianbestforum.com (2014) asserted that, the fact that an

average Nigerian finds it difficult to read the daily

newspapers and occasional magazines from time to time (not to

talk of literature books) arose as a result of a poor

acquisition of reading skills and culture. One who has

developed the habit of reading will always look for something

to read

3. Drowsy book industry

A very good way of encouraging people to read is to surround

them with books. Unfortunately the book industry which

supposed to be the cooking place for books in our society is

in slumber. Going down memory lane, Nigeria had a vibrant book

publishing industry, with perhaps the largest number of

publishing houses in any African country. At one stage,

prospects for the book industry in Nigeria appeared rosy. The

Federal Government established paper and pulp making

industries, and an elaborate plan was drawn up for achieving

self- sufficiency in the production of books for the

nursery/primary, secondary, and tertiary tiers of education.

Unfortunately all that, or most of it, collapsed following the

nation's economic downturn of the 1980s. The collapse of the

publishing sector reached its peak during 1980s structural

adjustment and thus, the book famine descended on Nigeria (Ike

2004). Even, in those days, an estimated 90% of the annual

output of books published in Nigeria was in the area of

textbooks for primary and secondary education. This results in

lopsidedness against the availability of professional books,

reference books and general books (including creative writing,

general interest books, and books for lifelong education).

Despite several intervention attempts have been made by the

government to provide books for the school system, like the

1989 Federal Government Book Aid Programme to Schools, the

1991 World Bank credit facility for the provision of suitable

and appropriate foundation for the implementation of a 6-year

Primary Education Improvement Project, and the multi-million

U.S. dollar World Bank credit facility to enable the outright

importation of foreign textbooks and journals for federal

universities. The Education Tax Fund currently provides funds

to enable the various educational institutions to buy library

books. Yet, the book famine is still here with us.

As noted by Lawal (2014),

“nowadays in Nigeria, it’s just not possible to print books locally to a

consistent level of quality and at a price that would make the books

affordable to Nigerian readers. The reality is, Nigerian publishers who wish to

sell good quality books at an affordable price are forced to print overseas. 

There’s nothing particularly innovative or unusual in this: many Western

publishers now print in Asia too.  Cheap electricity and labour, access to

international paper markets as well as technical know-how limit globally

competitive print facilities to a small group of countries.  Nigeria has no hope

of competing with these countries any time soon.”

This appalling state of publishing in Nigeria brought about a

lamentation by Dore (2013),

“It is with gratitude to God and the will of the Nigerian people that I

announce the death of the last publishing house in Nigeria. She is survived by

four children (the enterprising Chinese pirate, the uneducated Nigerian

intellectual thief, an intelligent Indian printing press, the government under-

funded NCC) and two grandchildren (books from UK sales bonanzas, and

books donated by Americans to Ojuelegba-under-bridge).”

The import of all these assertions is the fact that all is not

well with the book industry in Nigeria. We depend more on

foreign authors and foreign publishers for our books; with the

attendant high cost of these books. Some years back, one could

pick up a novel by Chinua Achebe’s or Wole Soyinka for as low

as N150, but now, the prices have gone up to about N1500 or

N2,000 for such a book. The resultant effect is that the books

are not affordable by the average Nigerian, who ends up seeing

reading as non essential.

To worsen this situation, the Federal Government recently

imposed a 62.5% tariff (a mix of levies, duties and VAT) on

imported printed books, where previously there has been none.

As noted by Lawal (2014),

“the sad unintended-consequence of the … tariff is that Nigerian schoolchildren

will no longer have any access to lovingly created and well-made books from

around the world (or those published by Nigerian companies using international

printers).  Even those who wish to donate books to Nigeria will no longer be able

to do so without additional (and prohibitive) costs.  When Nigerian children do

have access to books - which will be far from always - they will be in black and

white, printed on shoddy paper and with a diluted glue binding, on a limited

range of subjects.  They will grow up not considering books as possessions to be

treasured for life.  The quality of the books will not be a subliminal inducement to

learn to read and love reading, as elsewhere.”

 The implication of this is that the situation of apathy

towards reading in the Nigerian society will be further

compounded.

4. Inadequate Library Services"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." — Jorge Luis Borges

Libraries generally serve as information centres that provide

an array of information bearing materials meant for the

personal and educational development of the individual. Such

libraries which include school, academic and public are

supposed to, on the one hand provide resources to facilitate

the acquisition of intellectual skills by the individual and

on the other hand, provide recreational reading materials for

their personality development and spiritual growth. All these

are necessary to assist the individual to live a useful life

in the society (Ekpenyong, 1990; Ima - Usoro & Usanga, 2007)).

In an ideal society, all the three types of libraries suppose

to be functional. Unfortunately, libraries have been relegated

to the back stage in the Nigerian society.

Starting with the school library system, which suppose to

encourage its users to fully accept the responsibility for

education and development by giving individualized service,

making sure that every library user gets information that

meets his or her particular need; literature is full of the

fact that most of the public and private primary and secondary

schools in the country do not have structures designated as

school libraries. It so bad that, sometimes, the first

encounter an average Nigerian student has with the library is

at the tertiary level of education. As noted by Eghosa (2011),

school children in Nigeria hardly know what the library is all

about, because it is virtually nonexistent in most public and

private schools. This has been corroborated by

Nigerianschoolproject.org (2008) who noted that school

libraries are virtually non-existent within Nigerian schools.

Fabunmi and Foloruso (2010) as well as Egunjobi (2014) found

out from their respective studies that materials in secondary

school libraries are not organized, inadequate, not relevant

while school librarians were not readily available.

Furthermore, drawing from the findings of Bello, Issa & Jimoh

(2013),the state of school libraries’ facilities and resources

in Nigeria is generally precarious, the situation in the

primary schools, compared to those in secondary schools, is

even worse. It is important to note here that the chunk of

Nigerian youth are supposed to be students in the secondary

school. And these are the ones we are not exposing to books,

if they are not exposed to books where will the interest to

read develop?

The situation with public libraries is also not better,

because, the society has not deemed it important to develop

the public library system for the use of its citizenry.

Public libraries are service–oriented institutions usually

owned or funded by governments (Federal, State or Local)

expected to provide information to people in a particular

community. The libraries are expected to provide information

to meet the social, educational and recreational needs of the

community. These libraries play an important role in all

aspects of societal development considering the fact that its

users consist of all categories of people in the society who

are supposed to be served on the basis of equal access to all

(Saleh & Lasisi, 2011). Unfortunately, most of the public

libraries in Nigeria lack a coordinated library development

policy resulting in haphazard and inefficient services. The

Libraries also lack adequate and qualified personnel while

Ninety percent (90 %) of the collections of the Libraries are

outdated. The libraries also lack information and

communication technology. These centres of information are

sometimes nonexistent in many societies in the country. The

National Library of Nigeria is a ghost of itself due to lack

of funding while state libraries are just struggling to

survive. Some states don’t even have functional state

libraries. Local government that should also serve as

community libraries are long dead. It is unfortunate to note

that Bayelsa as a whole state cannot boast of a single public

library 15 years after its creation. (Saleh & Lasisi, 2011;

Punchng.com, 2012). Here are some interesting statistics about

library services in Lagos

Source: http://www.kunlekasumu.com

Academic libraries being libraries in tertiary institutions

fare a bit better, more importantly with the intervention of

library development in tertiary institutions by government

through Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund). As at today,

one can certainly say that many academic libraries in Nigeria

are fairly stocked and better staffed than before. However,

whether they witness adequate patronage by both staff and

students which they are established to serve is another issue

Number of public libraries= 11Number of books = 168, 812 volumes Number of readers in 2012= 177, 573Vol. of books read in 2012: 138, 721No of new registered members in 2012= 6989 of the 11 libraries built during the Jakande administration. 2 of the 11 libraries established during the Col. Marwa administration.

entirely. More importantly, majority of these libraries are

still ways back when compared to other climes.

5. Parental indifference"When I say to a parent, "read to a child", I don't want it to soundlike medicine. I want it to sound like chocolate. “— Mem Fox

"Children are made readers on the laps of their parents." — EmilieBuchwald

Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printedwords!" — A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, 1943

Perhaps the best way to start the discussion under this

subheading is to ask the parents in our midst some questions.

To those with kids in kindergarten- when last did you read to your

child? To those with children in upper primary school- when last did

you buy your child a story book? To those with children in secondary

school- how many novels and newspapers have you bought for your child or

brought home this year? Much as rhetorical as these questions might

look, it is important to stress that the influence of parents

in stimulating children to become good readers cannot be

underestimated. As noted by Akindele (2012) reading culture

and parental involvement in the development of children in

their formative years are the most crucial factors which form

the foundation for the child‘s education. In those days,

parents set aside time to tell their children or grandchildren

as the case may be folklores or moonlight stories.

Unfortunately, most of parents hardly find time to sit with

their children, not to talk of reading to them. A study by

Akindele (2012) indicated that in (83.4%) of cases,

availability of time is a major obstacle faced by parents in

cultivating reading culture for their children. Apart from

reading to our children, another good step in parental

assistance to make children readers is to raise their interest

in reading by surrounding them with books. Ironically, an

average parent will rather buy N150 worth of chocolate for

his/her children than buying “the Punch” newspaper of the same

worth.

6. Information technology culture

The world is presently in the information technology and

electronic age. We are always showered with terms like e-

service, e-library, e-book, e-storage, cloud storage and cloud

computing. Certainly, the world and indeed the information

world is presently under the control of the computer and the

internet. Related to this is the introduction of the global

system of mobile communication. These developments have

undoubtedly revolutionized the information and communication

sectors with the great advantages derivable from the

technologies. The technology of e books provides the

opportunity to read your book in the digitized format instead

of handling a book in print-on-paper form. The internet is

also full of useful and relevant information both to school

work and personal development.

Unfortunately, as good as ICT is, many observers say it has

also cast some measures of negative effects on Nigerians,

especially on their reading habits. Also, as they say internet

obsession has caused many kids to waste valuable times surfing

diverse anti-moral and socially inclined websites. The

average youth will rather spend time surfing the web for some

other things than reading the useful materials therein. For

instance, some would rather prefer to play games, listen to

music, watch video or chat online than reading useful online

books. Also, the introduction of the Global System of Mobile

Communication (GSM) in Nigeria has been viewed as one progress

that has come with certain negatives tendencies that are

detrimental to the culture of reading in the country.

According to Businessdayonline.com (2013) Of the 115 million

mobile telephone subscribers in the country, 35 million use

their handheld devices to access internet data services. Their

study further showed that the social media accounted for

greater reason why respondents go online. Facebook, Twitter,

LinkedIn, My Space, Tumblr and Instagram were among the social

media platforms investigated in the survey. Of the lot, 73

percent of the respondents said they are active on Facebook

daily, 35 percent are active on Twitter, while LinkedIn

accounts for 25 percent of social media presence. This fact

indicates that people prefer to spend their time using the

social media, a practice engaged in at the neglect of reading.

Conclusion

It is obvious that reading is not a easy task, but once the

culture is imbibed it becomes as easy as eating chocolate. The

average Nigerian youth needs to cultivate the habit of

reading. He needs to make books his friend but the youth is

also faced with various distractions within the context of the

Nigerian society. It therefore behooves of the society to make

for situations that will encourage the youth to read. To this

end, the following suggestions are made to serve as solutions

to the problem of reading apathy:

i. There must be inclusion of library education in the

curriculum of studies in primary and secondary education

by the nation’s educational planners, stressing that if

library education is given formal recognition in the

school curricula, library education classes would provide

platforms to educate and teach students on the general

concept of reading.

ii. Nigerians need to be strongly educated on the importance

of reading, noting that parents in particular have a very

good role to play in teaching their children how to read.

iii. It is better for parents to introduce them to reading

right from the homes in their early years by ensuring

that their children observe them while they are reading,

keep reading materials in the house, take children along

to public libraries, buy books as birthday gifts or

reward for good performance

iv. There is need for a paradigm shift in Nigerian’s poor

book buying habit to a good book-buying habit that

private and home libraries must be established by parents

in their house to stimulate reading.

v. At the primary and secondary educational levels, teachers

should make it a point of duty to encourage pupils to

imbibe the culture of reading through inauguration of

reading clubs as well as introduction of activities like

reading competitions, library or reading day.

vi. Stakeholders to come together and synergise to promote

reading, adding that librarians need to work more on

their advocacy and sensitisation strategies in order to

save the nation from the trend of decline in reading

culture.

vii. Government should support indigenous publishers and

authors to ensure effective performance of their roles,

stressing that it would encourage local publications or

production of books and other reading items thereby

reducing the high prices tags on books.

viii. Philanthropists, corporate organisations, social clubs,

multinational corporations, non government organisations

and development partners to assist by donating books to

public and school libraries towards encouraging reading.

ix. Government should find a way of encouraging and promoting

development of publishing books at reduced prices to make

them affordable for people to buy and read.

x. Educational institutions should take decisions and make

specific policies to engage students to read.

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