Astonishing contrasts and rude paradoxes define the Nigerian identity. It has, if the International Monetary Fund is to be believed, recently re-emerged as Africa’s largest economy, but what does this translate to, for citizens, many of whom resemble, in their suffering, survivors of a holocaust? Nigeria aspires to the world stage, but its institutions are drastically enfeebled, while its component nationalities are in varying stages of revolt against a centre that is both imperious and ineffective.
It is against this backdrop of great potential nestling with sensational setbacks, that one seeks to understand the shocking disrepair that has overtaken the nation’s pre-eminent cultural institution, the National Library. A national newspaper reported on Wednesday that the library is owing arrears of staff claims stretching to six years, while it is in danger of being evicted from its headquarters in Abuja, for failure to pay up its rent for three consecutive years. The report provides insight into the decrepit nature of the space currently occupied by the library, describing it as “in a deplorable state, with leaking roof, cracked walls, malfunctioning toilets and broken water pipes”. One always had an idea, as a cursory visit reveals, of the run down nature of our libraries; what is galling and scandalous is that the nation’s premier archive and cultural storehouse is about to join Nigeria’s lengthening list of abandoned institutions and projects.
As known, great nations make it their duties and solemn assignments to preserve their heritage, histories and distinctive places, by building and sustaining great libraries. It was the American Founding Fathers, bookworms and great scholars in their own rights, who founded the Library of Congress, the nation’s de facto National Library, in the early years of the federation. Successive leaders carried forward the vision, by rebuilding and relocating it, after infernos and wars, until it became the world’s largest library, acquiring well over two million items per year.
Do I need to mention the British Library, which is the National Library of the United Kingdom, and has materials in its possession dating back to 2000 B.C? In its latest incarnation, it enjoys the prestige of being one of the most significant public buildings in the UK in the contemporary period. We can go on and on, but the point has been made, I hope, that no nation worthy of its role definition in human affairs or mindful of its national heritage, will leave its national library in the kind of desolation that has overtaken our own.
How did we come to this sorry state? Part of the narrative will necessarily point up the tragic divorce in our national life, between power and intellect. The many years of military rule, featuring an officer class that could hardly be called intellectual, spawned all kinds of philistine excesses, symptomised by the tragic meltdown in a once globally acclaimed educational sector. When the Generals went back to the barracks, retired Generals, some of them, among the richest in the world, took over from where they left off and either ruled in person or from behind the stage, producing a political elite in their own image. In an earlier piece entitled, “What does President Jonathan read”? (The PUNCH January 19, 2013), I drew attention to the bankruptcy in reading culture of most Nigerian leaders, outside of the well-known intellectual giants of the first two decades of independence. I have no reason to believe that the situation has improved, since the article was written, especially if we go by the embarrassing, off the cuff remarks of our top politicians.
In the same vein, legislators routinely collect allowances for researches, but there is no evidence that they do any research. Why is this important? Because our politicians will rather fritter money on white elephants than to properly furnish a national library that will be of use to generations to come. It was nice that former President Olusegun Obasanjo had the presence of mind to build a Presidential Library in his home; it would have been nicer if he had poured the same energy into the legacy building enterprise of extensively re-kitting the nation’s apex Cultural and Educational Resource Centre.
To be sure, libraries have undergone changes in the information age, because of the availability of internet services in homes. Interestingly however, in their current hybridised form, in which they take advantage of electronic resources, they are enjoying a revival. For example, town planners in many parts of the globe are conceiving of magnificent libraries or the reconstruction of old ones, located in the busiest areas of cities, where they can reap economic dividends, by offering a cafeteria of cultural services which appeal to a wide stratum of the population. These are not libraries, housing books yellowing with age, that nobody ever reads; but innovatively located cultural institutions, featuring library halls, internet galleries, video and audio services, cafes, museums and a range of related economic and social services.
Part of the distress of libraries in the Nigerian setting is that they are almost totally separated in terms of their content, from the neighbourhoods in which they are located. This lacuna sells them short, because the very communities with which they should reciprocally interact and empower through knowledge sharing do not see any stake in these institutions. Properly conceived, the new Nigerian library, which should take its cue, from a re-invented National Library, should be an alternative university that warehouses tons of information about the communities in which they are located – their histories, ecology, folklores and customs. In that way, the communities will see themselves as vital parts of such institutions; while the libraries on their own parts, will provide information and resources for civic engagement and participation. Libraries starved of funds, with conspicously under-utilised computers sitting as decorating items, cannot showcase Nigerian culture or the culture of its people.
There is of course, as previously noted, a connect between reading culture and the flourishing of libraries. The phenomena of certificated illiterates, and universities as degree awarding mills, have deepened the problem because of the presence among the so-called educated elite of citizens who do not read newspapers, let alone books. The time-worn saying that the best way to hide anything from the black man is to put it in a book applies seminally to Nigerians, leaders and followers alike. Our successive presidents continue to read public speeches in the detached manner which suggests that they probably are seeing them for the first time.
Consequently, a re-invention of the culture of library use must go hand in hand with the revival of a reading culture, and of course, a qualitative system of education that transcends the recieving of degrees and diplomas.
At a minimum, the National Library must be saved from extinction by redeeming it from its current prostrate circumstances. All it requires is a reset of priorities in such a way that money spent on projects of doubtful value be redirected to saving the institution. Finally, as argued, there is the urgent need to re-institute a culture of library use, by revitalising the reading culture, while the libraries themselves should be recrafted by inserting them in social and economic activities, that can replenish them.
Punch
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