Governor Godwin Obaseki has taken steps to revive literary creativity in Edo State, noting that Edo was, throughout the 70s and 80s, renowned for its education and creativity, and had the best library set up in Nigeria, which promoted significant reading culture among people.
This was at Edo State Government House in Benin City, the state capital, where Governor Obaseki received members of the national executives of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) on a courtesy visit.
The governor noted that his administration was putting together a committee to resuscitate the state’s library system and reading culture, adding that every Local Government headquarter would be mandated to create a room or two for a library, so that people could have access to both manual and electronic texts.
He said, “We are going to ensure that we support the association locally, and we are pleading with the association to support us in governance. When we talk about reading culture, it is always better to catch them young. We are re-enacting our entire basic education system, we are moving our basic educational system into an e-platform because the technology exist.”
He explained further that publications would be converted to digital formats, and once the books were loaded into tablets, children would be able to catch up the idea and inculcate a reading culture with a wide variety of books.
Meanwhile, the National President of ANA, Mallam Denja Abdullahi, appreciated the governor’s strides to revive and reposition the dwindling reading culture in the state.
He also indicated the association’s readiness to work with the government towards revamping public libraries and keying into e-library service, which he said was the contemporary international standard.
In addition, the president also promised to provide qualitative books by authors within and outside Nigeria, as part of its support to the library system because literary creativity had a big role to play in reshaping Nigeria’s economy and providing lasting solutions to our common problems.
