Eminent lawyer, Chief Folake Solanke (SAN) has lamented the declining rate of reading culture among our youths and blamed it on the “invasion of the computer, the internet and social media sites.”

The nation’s first female Senior Advocate specifically challenged law students to be active in reading if they desire to be successful in legal profession.

Solankespoke at a one-day Journal Launch and Personality Lecture in her honor held at the Faculty of Law Theatre, University of Ibadan (UI).

According to her, “the reading culture, which is now abysmally low, not only in Nigeria, but in the whole world because of the invasion and omnipresence of the computer, the internet and social media sites. I readily acknowledge the marvels of information technology and the endless bombardment of the uncontrollable information on the internet.

“ However, let me admonish you that the internet is not a substitute for the book. It is an additional facility- a supplement to be employed in education, learning and the communication process. They must not become mere distractions from the book. However, the internet has its demerits.

“In the year 2014, about 50 percent of the Law students in the Law School failed woefully, according to reliable information available to me, one of the reasons was that some students were not reading. If you want to become successful lawyers, you have to be addicted to reading. There is no alternative unless you go to another profession. If you don’t read, you cannot succeed as a lawyer. That is the truth.”

The female SAN also noted people with less reliance on computer in the early school years have better skill.
“The computer over indulged children and the “cut and paste” lazy students have no writing or speaking skills. They don’t think for themselves because they only copy and consume other people’s information on the internet. The other group of children with less reliance on computer in the early school years have better skills.

“I believe that people who do not have a reading culture are to be pitied because they are wallowing in intellectual poverty. No serious lawyer can afford to be intellectually anaemic.

“Your faculty of law has a rich history- producing judges, senior magistrates, senior advocates of Nigeria, professors and other academics. Those, who have succeeded must have been apostles of the reading culture. The value of reading is unquantifiable in all life’s situations,” she said.