Mr David Adejo, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, has urged students in the country to rekindle the reading culture.
Adejo gave the advice on Tuesday at the launch of the 2023 Readership Promotion Campaign organised by the National Library of Nigeria (NLN) in Abuja.
The 2023 Readership Promotion Campaign is taking place in all the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with the theme “Read your way to the top”.
Permanent secretary, who expressed concern over poor reading culture among Nigerian children, said that according to studies conducted, half of the adults in Nigeria hardly read books.
“It is general saying that if you want to hide anything from a Nigerian, put it in a book. This is becoming worse because we are reading less than we used to.
”This is more evident in our young ones and is becoming worrisome with the heavy reliance on digital reading sources,’’ he said.
According to him, it is for this reason that we see this Annual Readership Promotion Campaign as a way of moving the nation forward economically, socially and politically.
“Statistics show that a good percentage of Nigerian children have trouble with reading comprehension.’’
“This made National Library of Nigeria to initiate various readership promotion campaigns to make the promotion of reading one of its top priorities.
Speaking earlier, the National Librarian/Chief Executive Officer of the NLN, Prof.Chinwe Anunobi, said that the readership campaign which was held in 2022 impacted over 4,000 individuals comprising secondary school students and other adults.
Anunobi blamed the poor reading culture in the country on inadequate educational resources and advent of social media among others.
“I need not overemphasise the position that we must encourage our children and youths to jettison social media and read because independent reading leads to an increased volume of reading.
“The more one reads, the more knowledge of words and language one acquires,” she said.
Also in her remarks, the Chairperson of the Readership Promotion Campaign, Mrs Amaka Ojielo said that the theme of the campaign was apt, saying that “it is only through reading that one can excel academically, economically, socially and health wise.”
Ojielo, who said that the benefits of books and reading could not be overemphasised, described the National Library of Nigeria’s readership campaign as an effort to make the country an information literacy nation. (NAN)