Arts/Literary
Many Books, Fewer Readers
Creative work has never been in short supply in Nigeria. There is hardly any year that new books do not debut on Nigerian shelves. The credit goes to Nigeria’s growing number of authors who have been dishing out a salad of creative writing.
Over the last five decades, for instance, Nigeria has produced some of the world’s best literary giants whose creative exploits have shot the country to international literary limelight.
Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, John Pepper Clark, Christopher Okigbo, Gabriel Okara, Femi Osofisan, Amos Tutuola, Ben Okri, among others, led the pack of Nigeria’s old literati. Their literary success across the three genres of literature – prose, drama and poetry, has continued to rev up creative potentials in the new generation of writers in the country. And indeed, the likes of Buchi Emecheta, Helon Habila, Sefi Attah, Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie have kept the torch of literature alight and aglow.
Nigeria’s literary history is so rich such that Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, has been translated to more than 50 languages, while Professor Soyinka remains a trailblazer as Africa’s first Nobel laureate for literature.
The female authors are not left behind. For instance, Florence Nwapa is often referred to as the “mother” of modern African literature, while in the current era, Nigeria boasts one of the world’s best known authors in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose literary breakthrough has been accentuated by her commentary on socio-political issues, especially feminism and African politics.
Ironically, despite this rich history and increasing visibility of Nigerian books on book shelves around the world, the market for books appears to be dwindling. The reality on the ground is that demand for literary fiction in Nigeria is getting poor and low.
In 2011, academics from Lagos State University released a paper titled “Poor Reading Habits Among Nigerians”, which cited the benefits of reading for self-improvement and mental and emotional health. The paper further hypothesized that Nigeria’s reading culture had suffered from widespread poverty, corruption, deprioritization, and a dearth of dedicated quiet reading spaces like libraries.
“A reading nation is an informed nation,” the dons asserted, adding that “Nigeria can not be regarded as a reading nation because the younger generation of Nigerians does not consider reading a leisure activity”.
Many literary minds are troubled by this trend. One of such is Wale Adetula, the founder of The Naked Convos, one of Nigeria’s popular youth-oriented blogs. He, sometime ago, conducted an online poll surveying over a thousand users of his site on their reading habits, and found out that many educated Nigerians only read one book a year.
The results of the poll inspired him to launch the TNC Stories app, which carries the disconcerting tagline, “Reading is dead”. This app allows contributors to create and share stories using text video, audio and music, a non-conventional method to inspire reading habits in most Nigerians.
“The reading culture in Nigeria is poor”, Adetula affirms. “Forget the number of books you see being sold in traffic and our global acclaim for excelling – Nigerians read only when they have to”, he says.
Adetula believes a culture of reading is not being written into Nigeria’s education system. According to him, “Students see it as some sort of necessary evil. And it becomes harder when you have to deal with the many distractions and challenges that come with being an adult and living in a country like Nigeria”.
Another mind troubled by Nigeria’s poor reading culture is David Dia, a writer and author. Dia attributes the poor reading culture in Nigeria to a number of factors including access to books and printed materials, poor quality of teaching and teachers churned out from a dysfunctional education system.
“But most importantly is the arrival of the digital age upon us, which has not only provided a veritable platform for the dissemination of multiple and diverse information in all fields, but has gradually made hard copy books cumbersome and obsolete”, he says.
He also partly blames the trend on publishing constraints in the country, which, according to him, has resulted in most indigenous writers engaging foreign publishers whose focus is on profitable markets in developed climes.
Ironically, Dia says the digital reading culture is quite healthy and robust, particularly on social networking platforms where both formal and trivia information, supported attractively with memes, emojis, GIFs and other instructive graphics and optics are copiously deployed and utilized.
Customer support representative, Karo Oforofuo, shares Dia’s thoughts. He notes that Nigeria has a limited number of bookshops, and that printing books domestically is a difficult and expensive process. E-books are easier to distribute, as people only need the app to download as many books as they want, Oforofuo says.
He believes Nigerian reading culture will get better by the day, given the computer age and advent of e-books”.
Another writer, Fareedah Abdulkareem, provides an insight into what may have made Nigeria’s reading habit so low and poor in spite of an avalanche of books in the market.
She says it’s unclear if it’s about people not wanting to read for leisure, or in fact not having access to fiction.
“Books have become increasingly expensive in the country as bookshops have shuttered, and with an adult literacy rate of 51%, it’s not surprising that some supporters of literature in the country are concerned about how novelists might fare once their books are published”, she says.
She quoted a senior editor of Farafina Books, an imprint of Kachifo, and one of the country’s most popular publishing houses, as saying that most of the sales for the publishing house come from religious or educational texts, not fiction.
Abdulkareem also recalls that Okada Books, one of the sponsors of the Dusty Manuscript contest, also makes much of its money selling educational, self-help, and motivational titles.
However, with the interest expressed by some private institutions and multinationals, the Nigerian literary canon has the potentials of expanding and developing.
In the last one decade, for instance, a number of literary prizes have helped support Nigeria’s literary fiction circles. They include the 9Mobile Prize for Literature, backed by 9Mobile telecommunications company formerly known as Etisalat, the Nigeria Prize for Literature, sponsored by the NLNG gas company, and the Miles Morland grant, which supports authors working on a novel for a year.
While these prizes are geared towards pepping up upcoming writers and providing a vista of opportunities for them to sell their work, it’s important to ask what kind of market their books will be entering.
Abdulkareem says this effort won’t get far if it doesn’t spread to the offices of elected representatives, or if people don’t view reading as a enjoyable hobby.
She believes, however, that if new genres continue to be supported, books redistributed and reoriented as multimedia content, and the government takes an active role in the refurbishment of existing libraries and the redesign of the school curriculum, some things might change.
Until that time, we can only urge the players in the small, but growing industry to keep fighting to keep reading alive.
By: Boye Salau
It is the idea of God that family should exit. Children form part of the family. God loves family so much that Jesus was born into the family of Joseph.
Everyone’s family is good and important. Children should not look down on their family whether they are rich or poor.
Children should respect and honour their family and foster love among their siblings. They should work together and make peace in the family. They should always stand in the gap. It is good for family members to carry all along since everyone may not be doing well.
The Christianity that children learn is practised in family. Faith-based organisations do a great job in moulding children’s character. Those are the behaviours that children exhibit towards siblings in family.
Every child born in a family is there for a purpose. A baby born into a family is supplying something. It may be joy, wealth and so on. Everyone is important in a family.
Adolescents who have graduated from school but may not be contributing financially can do one or two things at home. You can engage in preparing meals at home while parents are away for a job or business. Contributing in house chores will go a long way to relieve parents of stress after a day’s job.
What do you contribute to your family, especially during holidays both in nuclear and extended family?
The family you were born is constant but friends are temporary. You can decide not to continue in friendship but you cannot cut off your family. No matter how bad you think your family is and you decide to leave home, you must surely return. Your friends can harbour you for a while.
The child’s first identity comes from the family. What the child learns first comes from the family.
Family is the centre of love and care. People have started playing down on marriage because of neglect on basics of family. Marriage starts today and and the next few months, it is threatened. Respect for family plays a crucial role in marriage.
No child grows without parental control and influence. If a child refuses to grow without taking instructions from parents, he may grow up being wild. There are consequences when children do not obey their parents. There are those who want to be rebellious against their parents. They should know that their length of days are tied to their parents.
Your bioligical parents know you more than every other person. There is the wisdom and knowledge your parents have that you do not so it is proper to listen to them before choosing carriers both in academics and job. A young man or woman can choose who to get married to, but a greater role in the choice of who to marry and the marriage proper comes from the parents.
They know what is best for you. No matter how modern trends will influence you and prove it wrong, parent is the key. No one can love you more than your parents because they are your blood.
A lot of parents have been traumatised due to the fact that children they nurtured and trained turned their back on them at older age. Children should not abandon their parents for any reason.
As you grow up, situations may arise in marriage when you decide it is over with your spouse, but no matter the level of provocation with your parents, they will not despise you. Parents will also play a role in that regard. Problem arises in every family but how it is handled matters a lot.
Some children honour their mentors more than their parents. Although there are parents who shy away from their responsibilities. It is important that parents take full responsibility of their children. You cannot bring a child to the planet earth and refuse to perform roles as a parent. But parents may not quantify what they spent from childhood to adolescence. That is a blessing children cannot get from another person.
There are people who have attributed their failure in life to the fact that their parents, especially mothers are witchcraft. It is wrong to feel that your mother is instrumental to your failure in life. The only way to success is hardwork.
Let money not determine the level of love for your parents. Wherever a child goes, family is constant.
Eunice Choko-Kayode
Naturally, when a child is born, it is the role of the father and mother to decide a suitable name for the child. The husband and wife normally discuss and suggest the English or vernacular name of the baby.
But sometimes, when a baby comes into a family, grandparents hearts are usually filled with joy to the extent that they want to answer present, by giving their own names not minding the fact that the biological parents have given theirs.
This happens mostly when the marriage is an inter-tribal one. It also happens even in intra-tribal marriage. Grandparents want equal representation as far as naming a child is concerned. They also have special names as a result of circumstances surrounding the birth of the child.
This is still happening till date.
A lot of people have viewed this in different ways but there is nothing wrong about it. The most important thing is that the child bears as many names as he or she can. But one thing is certain, the child must bear one name in school.
Should circumstance determine a child’s name?
Women who are more emotional are always eager to name their children considering the circumstances surrounding the child’s conception and arrival.
The issue of grandparents naming a child comes up mostly when it is the first of the family.
In naming children by some parents in the olden days, they named their children according to the days in the week in which they were born, like Sunday, Monday, Friday and so on.
You may be shocked to hear that whether a child is given 10 names by parents or grandparents, when he or she grows up, will decide to change. There are several cases where some persons decided to change especially when they feel that the names given by their parents and grandparents do not give them joy. If they are not doing well in life, they may claim that their misfortune is caused by the name their parents.
Competition among children in schools be it primary, (kindergarten) and secondary come in different forms. It can be Mathematics , debate, quiz, spelling bee,competition, from organisations like Cowbell, multi-national companies, faith-based organisations among others.
They are organised mostly for selected intelligent ones, the best among their peers to represent a class, school or group. Prizes are normally set aside for the best as well as consolation prizes for runners-up at the end of each session.
The question is, are children willing to accept defeat when they fail? As parents, guardians, can you encourage your children or wards to accept defeat instead of shouting and comparing them with others who may be performing better either in schools or outside.
Some parents may be blaming their children for not doing well in competitions. They will like to tell their children if others who may perform better have ten heads. Those group of parents blame their children for every failure.
For your children to do better in competition, the parents too must have emotional intelligence. When you continue to blame your children for failure, how intelligent are you?
Some parents always want their children to be in the 1st position and unhappy whenever they secure 2nd position. There were instances where children smashed their trophies because they never got the position they wanted to get and their parents supported them.
Children should be able to accept it whether they win or not. They should be encouraged for every performance. Discourage the issue of “shame, shame, shame, shame”.
A parent says she always tells her children to win even if they will fail. Always give them the mentality that they can win. Children should be given the impression that they can win prizes and laurels in every competition.
Parents should not isolate their children from others in the neighbourhood. Allow them to play with others. Don’t threaten your children that you may not pay their schools fees if they fail. Comparing them with others may encourage or discourage them.
Coming first or getting award as a first class student from the university sometimes does not mean that the person is the best. And if the child does not merit any award in the lower classes, does not mean that he can not merit first class also.
It should be noted that coming first in academic competition may not really mean that the competitor will be the best at work place or business.
Accepting defeat is a way to move higher. Even if a child who competed with others did not come first, there are consolation prizes for runners-up. When you advise the child to accept defeat, you are encouraging her to win in next competition.
Remember all children cannot be on the same knowledge level Their learning abilities defer.
Eunice Choko-Kayode