- Says
There’s Book Hunger In Nigeria
By Anote Ajeluorou
HOW can scientific innovations be
derived from Africa’s vast oral heritage to bridge needed technological gap on
the continent? How can African governments harness this oral, folklore heritage
to galvanize its youthful population for meaningful employment and engagement?
In fact, do oral tales contain ingredients capable of being transformed into
scientific innovations? One of Africa’s folklore experts and professor of Oral
Literature and Folk Science at Delta State University, Abraka, Gordini G.
Darah, has canvassed the need to exploit the connection between Africa’s vast
repertoire of folktales and science if the continent genuinely desires to play
a role in the global knowledge economy.
Darah made the submission at the recent Nigeria International Book Fair,
which was held last week at University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos. He spoke on the
theme ‘African Youth Empowerment through Book for Sustainable National
Development’. The president of Nigerian Oral Literature Association (NOLA)
argued that embedded in the continent’s oral narratives that African
governments and intellectuals have rashly abandoned for the written text and
the magic of the television are ingredients for serious scientific explorations
that could change the technological pace of the continent. While other peoples
were still collecting their folklores and studying them for the richness of
body of knowledge embedded in them, Darah said Africans have consigned their
rich patrimony to pastime fit only for grandmothers in the villages to regale
children with.
He said the Japanese were the first to make the connection just before
the turn of the last century when her scientists were tasked with collecting
the country’s oral narratives and studying them for their knowledge wealth.
Today, Darah said, Japan is a world leader in science and technology. He also
noted that till date Americans still collect folk tales from around the world,
adding that it wasn’t just a pastime for American anthropologists, but a
genuine desire to obtain the knowledge and sciences that governed those
communities centuries ago.
“Folklores contain the knowledge wealth of a people,” Darah stated. “In
the oral traditions of a people are to be found the tangible and intangible
experiences, the scientific knowledge and philosophies that made it possible
for them to survive all through the ages. The developed world has exploited
their own folklores to create scientific innovations. We need to do the same
with our folklores. We cannot continue to abandon them in an era when we need
the wealth of knowledge they contain to guide and also sustain us the way they
guided and sustained our ancestors many years ago”.
He, therefore, called on governments to encourage and support the
collection and research into Africa’s oral heritage for the knowledge hidden in
them to lift the continent from the tab of a ‘rich continent with the poorest
people’.
INEXTRICABLY linked to Africa’s vast
oral wealth that should be exploited is the continent’s young population that
needs to be harnessed for sustainable development. The oral expert said
Africa’s youthful population was being under-educated, a situation he said
explains the high level of illiteracy that necessarily inhibits development.
Rather than focus only on mining the myriads of mineral wealth that makes it
‘the richest continent with the poorest people’, (mineral wealth that Africans
rely on foreigners to mine, as they do not have the technological know-how)
Darah said the time had come to properly educate Africa’s youth so as to mine
the wealth in their brains, as other successful countries are doing to advance
their societies.
He said it was unacceptable, for instance, for Nigeria, the continent’s
largest economy, from recent rebasing, to devote a paltry eight per cent of her
national budget to education whereas Ghana devotes 25 per cent to education. It
explained why Nigerians with a little means send their wards to Ghanaian
universities where conditions are far better than at home. He recounted the
instance of South Korea, which does not boasts of a single mineral wealth, but
is currently the most technological advancement in the entire world. He noted
that the founder of modern South Korea, after the 1950s war with its brotherly
North Korea, embarked on aggressive educational investment programme that later
saw to the transformation of relatively backward South Korea to the most
advanced societies in the world.
The folklore scientist advised in-coming Muhammadu Buhari-led government
to prioritise education and heavily invest in it and free Nigerian youths from
illiteracy so as to unleash their latent potentials for the country’s economic
growth. Closely related to education, Darah noted, is the parlous state of the
country’s book publishing business, which accounts for very little, with over
98 per cent of books consumed in Nigeria being imported or printed abroad. He
argued that this was reason for high costs of books and a disincentive for
educational advancement.
The seasoned university teacher then canvassed for a free and compulsory
education for all young people, as a means of bridging the development gap
between Africa and the rest of the world. As he put it, “In the modern world,
the spread of education to all is a prerequisite for development. Without a
literate and educated population, African countries cannot attain the status of
a knowledge economy. As Chief Adegoke Adelabu said over 60 years ago,
‘Education is the foundation of freedom. Ignorance is the basis of slavery. If
you must free a people, first and foremost, educate them’.”
He noted that leader of Western Region of Nigeria, Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, took Adelabu’s educational philosophy to heart and made it free in his
region. Darah said without Awolowo’s free education, he might not have been
educated himself, adding, “Awolowo’s free education scheme has reproduced a
critical mass of educated elite, making the Yoruba areas of Nigeria the densest
constituency of educated people in Africa”.
According to Darah, “The result of the rebasing exercise showed that the
information and communications sector accounts for 10.94 per cent of Gross
Domestic Products (GDP). Of this figure, telecommunications services are rated
8.69 per cent while publishing has only 0.03 per cent. Motion pictures (film or
Nollywood), sound recording and music
production account for 1.42 per cent. The arts, entertainment and recreation
sector has 0.08 per cent. Education is allotted 1.65 per cent. In all the
sectors of the economy connected with education show the lowly position
occupied by intellectual production and book-related business in the country.
All the stakeholders in the book business and intellectual property production
should study these data in order to plan strategies for survival and
sustainable growth”.
FOLLOWING from these grim figures for
education and book-related business, the oral narrative expert challenged
government to do more so as to put a halt to the infringement on the
fundamental rights of young people by denying them education. He noted that
there was book hunger in the land. He stated, “By under-developing the book
industry in Nigeria, government is guilty of the breach of the fundamental
rights of citizens to benefit from the spiritual and ethical values that books
provide. The young people who are the main victims of this book hunger are
being systematically disempowered and dehumanized. The problem is that not just
those who need books are denied access due to severe shortages and exorbitant
prices, even public libraries are not provided. Unfortunately, President
Goodluck Jonathan’s ‘Bring Back the Book’, which was to develop public
libraries and stimulate a reading culture failed to satisfy public expectation.
”Books are the vehicles through which education and knowledge are
transmitted and preserved. The problem of shortages was aggravated in the 1990s
following the devaluation of the nation’s currency. With a weak industrial base
and dependency on imports, book suppliers and distributors faced enormous
difficulties”.
The folklore scientist also argued that there were too few universities
and polytechnics in the country. He cited the case of Indiana State of America
that has ‘137 university institutions’ compared to Nigeria’s ‘over 130
universities’, and stated, “The portals of education are shut to millions of
young people who… are unable to move to the tertiary institutions due to the
limited opportunities there”.
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