The story of the 60-year-old National Library is a metaphor for, on the one hand, the value that Nigeria places on knowledge, and on the other hand the sorry state of the country itself.
Established by an Act of Parliament in 1964 with headquarters in Lagos, it moved with the Federal Government to Abuja in 1995. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government awarded an N8.9 billion contract for a befitting building to Reynolds Construction Company in 2006 to be completed within four years. Close to two decades after, the edifice remains unfinished. In effect, there is no structure appropriate to fulfill the vision and mission that national libraries serve in other climes.
On the occasion of the diamond jubilee of the organisation when it should have much to celebrate and to showcase as a Nigerian repository of knowledge, the National Librarian and Chief Executive of National Library of Nigeria, Prof. Chinwe Anunobi, had cause to lament the non-completion of its headquarters that in effect hampers the fulfillment of its mission, and the consequent limitation to deepening the reading culture among Nigerians. On the country’s intellectual landscape, this is one ‘national monument’ so glaringly missing to the point of embarrassment, to adapt the sentiments of Anunobi.
A national library, says Wikipedia, ‘is established by the government of a nation to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country.’ If purpose-built and equipped, Nigeria’s national library should, as it proclaims in its mandate, serve as ‘the intellectual memory of the nation.’ Alas, that Obasanjo failed to complete the project he (wisely) initiated, and that successive governments also failed to complete it, speak much about the disheartening priorities of Nigerian leaders in matters of knowledge in particular, and education in general.
Libraries are not only static repositories of knowledge but also serve as convenient infrastructural facilities to acquire it and transform personal and communal lives. But not only citizens but their governments benefit from the use of libraries; better informed citizens are easier to govern because of their already heightened capacity to self-govern, they are also better equipped to add economic value to themselves and to their countries. Besides, writes Carl Becker, ‘the general diffusion of knowledge and learning through the community (that good libraries enable) is essential to the preservation of free government.’
In his well-written essay on the personal benefits of reading titled: ‘We Are What We Read’, reading enthusiast and researcher–writer, Francis Onaiyekan, posits that reading ‘counsels us’, ‘expands the frontier of our mind’ and ‘refines us’; it ‘equips us to think deeply, broadly, and judge more finely [so] that we take more intelligent decisions, make wiser choices, and act from…‘inclusive thinking’ [that sees] the larger picture of issues’.
‘We refrain from narrow-mindedness, hasty judgment, and stereotyping and (we) are saved, thereby from the disease… of bigotry [and other presumptuous sins].’ The writer concludes that ‘reading deepens us spiritually, and raises our personal values to a higher plane [so that, the more widely we read], ‘the more excellent’ we become.
Countries around the world, irrespective of financial strength, place a priority on establishing and sustaining functional national libraries, and even beyond that, public and other special purpose libraries and ‘reading rooms.’ It is estimated that there are about 2.8 million libraries in the world, including 2.2 million school libraries.
A national library is a testament to the value a country places on the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of knowledge.
It also serves other functions such as the issuance of International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN) and International Serial Numbers (ISN). Countries rich, and not so rich, establish and nurture their own, from the National Library of Afghanistan (before the Taliban) and Angola’s National Library, through Bahrain’s Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa National Library and the National Library of Burkina Faso, to Japan’s National Diet Library, the Vatican Library, and the Library of Congress in the United States that reputably held by 2022, 171 million materials in various format, on 1,350 km of shelves.
Countries of the world that appreciate the value and unqualifiable benefits of well-educated citizenry establish libraries within the easiest reach of their people.
Norway, with a population of about 5.26 million has 740,000 libraries, averaging 7.10 persons to a library and Australia’s 8.773 million strong population enjoys the services of 1,372,000 libraries, Cuba’s 11.48 million citizens are served by 399,000 libraries averaging 28.7 persons to a library.
The United Kingdom’s 66.02 population have access to about 3.9,000 libraries, the United States provides 17, 218,000 to serve its 325.7 million citizens, and South Africa’s 56.72 million people has 1,504,000 libraries with one for about 38 persons (www.researchgate.net).
Published figure reveals that there are 316 libraries in Nigeria including the branches of the National Library. While this figure may not be taken as conclusive (there are nearly 600 tertiary institutions with, assumedly, appropriately equipped libraries) there can be no doubt from cursory observation that there are not enough public and private libraries to serve the country’s over 200 million citizens.
It is not difficult to conjecture a strong correlation between national literacy levels and the availability of reading resources. Cuba has a literacy level of 99.71 per cent, Norway 100 per cent, United Kingdom, United States Australia 99 per cent each and South Africa 94 per cent. Nigeria’s literacy rate is rated only 59.57 per cent.
To be continued tomorrow.
