By Anote Ajeluorou
Starting from May 6 till
11, the 2013 edition of Nigeria International Book Fair will take place at its
usual venue at the Multipurpose Hall of University of Lagos, Akoka Campus,
Lagos. Chairman of Nigeria Book Fair Trust and Ibadan-based Managing
Director/CEO, University Press Plc, Mr. Samuel Kolawole said in a recent
interview that all was set for the book tourism that the fair has come to be
known amongst book lovers. Exceprts:
What are preparations for
the book fair, which is only a few weeks from now? And how have you been able
to ensure consistency for the fair?
Well, so far so good. Everything is in place to make it
better than that of last year. So far so good; all the people we need to
consult we have consulted and everything has been put in place for a successful
fair. I think it’s the passion that people have for the book industry that has
sustained it thus far. The book business is a risky business; you may not make
millions from it but it can keep you going for a number of years. But if you
have passion for it, it can keep you going for a very long time. There is not
much money in it anyway, so it has to be a passion for books. The fair is made
up of booksellers, authors, publishers, printers, librarians – people who have
passion for books. And I think it’s that passion that keeps us going over the
years.
So, in spite of the challenges, the passion keeps us going;
it’s what is responsible for the consistency. For the past 13 years, there is
no year the Nigerian International Book Fair didn’t hold.
To a large extent, the fair is self-sustaining except for
the international conference part that we have one or two bodies that come to
our aid. There’s Repro India Ltd, a book printing company from India that had
partnered with us for a few years now, as a way of giving back to the Nigerian
economy where they also do business. We used to get support from the Norwegian
embassy but that support has finally stopped. But the main support has been
what we make from the fair and contributions from our members.
As you know, support from our government is not there. You
know the nature of our country; we keep talking about improving reading culture
in the country and access to books, but when it comes to putting money down to
drive it, many people, including government, shy away from it. For that reason
we’ve not really had the support we ought to get from government.
Do you get enough support
for the fight against book piracy from Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC)?
Well, they’ve been listening, especially in the last couple
of years. We’ve got a lot of support from NCC. What we have found is that the
problem is so big and whatever effort they are making is like a drop in the
ocean. NCC cooperated with us last year. With the kind of system that has been
put in place by the booksellers, the publishers, NCC and Nigerian Customs
Service, we’ve been able to arrest a number of containers of pirated books that
came into the country. So, we had a lot of cooperation from those government
agencies because of the agreement we had with them.
About two years ago we visited and solicited the support of
the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service to help us savage the
situation. In the past, the pirates were here producing books in the country;
but with the improvement of technology, we discover that the pirated books are
becoming better than the ones produced in Nigeria. And so, we had to get them
involved; we solicited his support so they have a way of clearing with
publishers first once books are coming in. With this system, the Custom
contacts us first to know if the books are from us before clearing them at the
ports.
We also had arrangement with NCC so that Custom get authorization
from NCC before you can clear books coming into the country. So, these are
measures we put in place linking these two agencies; and it has worked well for
us. With these measures, we hope to confiscate more books than before. Of
course, it has been challenging for publishers and booksellers because of the
procedures that are now involved. But it’s better to waste a few days and
arrest the situation than allow everybody to do whatever they like to ruin our
business. So, they are cooperating but there is a lot more that can be done.
Recently, we had stakeholders meeting on new copyright
regime and how to improve the laws to make them more effective and to
incorporate the idea of digital rights into the legal framework. We hope
contributions of stakeholders would be incorporated into the legal framework
for better copyright regime in the country.
The theme for this year’s
book fair is ‘Investing in Knowledge Economy for Sustainable Development’ Do
you think there’s enough investment being made in knowledge economy in Nigeria?
It’s interesting
to say that investment is taking place in the knowledge economy. It may not be
as the coordinated way that people can see. But I’ll give you an obvious
example that we don’t even think about; look at the number of private
universities that are spring up across Nigeria today. That is investment in the
knowledge economy; it’s happening even at secondary and primary school levels.
It also happens in materials being used in schools including books.
So, there’s investment being made there. We move along with
the times; the idea of conventional books is changing across the world although
we’re still far behind here in Nigeria. We need to begin to invest now so we
can prepare for the future. There’s a lot of money to be made otherwise people
will not invest in knowledge economy. Opportunities are there but people are
only looking at establishing schools.
There’s the area of technology waiting to be invested in. In
some countries, they don’t really have much but you see them conducting
admission clinics in Nigeria for their universities and colleges. Students
going from Nigeria to their universities constitute part of their revenue like
the U.K., Canada, U.S.; you also see Nigerian students attending universities in
Ghana and other African countries. This suggests that there’s market there.
Investing in knowledge economy can really help Nigeria. Investing in books is
part of investing in the knowledge economy.
Look at all the stakeholders that are involved in the book
chain – printers, publishers, authors, booksellers – they all contribute to the
economy; they are all investing in the knowledge economy. If there’s good
investment in the knowledge economy, all these categories of people will
benefit. With the money made, they will employ people and contribute to the GDP
of this country. The same goes for the authors who write the books.
But these are opportunities that the government doesn’t see.
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