Encomium
A group of concerned citizens led by Kola Oyeyemi, the General Manager of MTN, renowned comedian, Ali Baba, and veteran broadcaster, Larry Izamoje, staged an awareness campaign to revive the reading culture in Nigeria, on Saturday July 12, at Rowe Park, Yaba. Joined by Nollywood actors and artistes with hundreds of students and parents, the group walked all the way through Sabo in a bid to tame the growing nonchalance to reading. The awareness campaign was tagged Readers Are Leaders Destiny Walk.
One of the key speakers, at the campaign, Ali Baba, emphasized the importance of reading to boost creativity, citing his own example as an intellectual comedian. He urged the youth to go after knowledge which he said can only be got through reading and exploration.
In support of the renowned comedian, Winnie Aduayi, The Executive Director of Trendy Communications, emphasized the need for students to participate in a worthy cause like the Walk and take embark voluntary projects that could help them gather experience. She outlined a number of seminars that will follow the campaign and encourage the youth to participate.
The convener, Kola, recalled how Nigerian intellectuals used to be ‘the brides of the western world because of their high intellectual capacity’, but stressed that ‘what we have currently are students and artisans who can hardly compete favourably locally let alone on the global platform’.
He thereby encouraged well meaning Nigerians to invest in public libraries and the government to formulate policies that will support the initiative to revive the reading culture.
The Destiny Walk’ is seen as a step in the right direction. In recent time, cases have been made for such project especially in the face of mass failure recorded in the school certificate examination.
Some prominent Nigerians like Wole Soyinka and Chimamanda Adichie have been known to be in the fore-front of the campaign to revive the reading culture at all educational levels.
