Olukorede YishauWhen music stars perform world over, the arenas are always filled. Sometimes they even overflow. Girls, boys, men and women do crazy things when they behold their stars. Movie stars also command this level of adulation.Nigerian music stars Wizkid and Davido last year performed at the Indigo 02, a massive space in London, and the shows were sold out. When these guys and others on their level of acceptance perform back home, they always smile to the bank.Big businesses, including Nigerian Breweries, Nigerian Bottling Company, Coca-Cola and United Bank for Africa, readily support their shows and even shower multi-millions on them as ambassadors.They are so rich they charter private jets and enjoy the best of food, wine and women! If you doubt the women part, show me two of the major stars without baby mamas.Leave the musical shows and head to book readings by Booker Prize winners or finalists in Lagos, Abuja or any city in Nigeria. What you will see are a few people in mostly relatively small halls.These are special breeds of human beings who sleep, eat and drink books. At the last Ake Festival in Lagos, Nollywood actress Dakore Akande had more attention than Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo.We all like the glamour of the music and movie industries. This likeness extends to the corporate bodies. Ask them to choose between supporting Wizkid and Evaristo, orAn Orchestra of Minoritiesauthor Chigozie Obioma, and your guess is as good as mine.Even if they decide to support all of them, Wizkid will get multiple of what goes to Evaristo and two-time Booker finalist Obioma. This brings me to the sorry state of libraries in Nigeria.Not long ago, I had cause to enter the library of a Barnes and Noble in Houston, Texas. If you are looking for books to read till eternity, they are there, and if you need to grab snacks and coffee while reading, you do not need to step out.From medicine to fiction, memoirs and so on, there are piles and piles to choose from. Towards the end of last year, I was at the E-Ananse library, a private initiative inside the University of Ghana, in Accra. Though a small affair, the ambience encourages you to sit down and grab a book.Back home in Nigeria, I expect the state libraries to be the best. Unfortunately, most of them are the worst set of libraries Nigeria has. The Cross River State Library is a place with a rich history.Like the Freedom Park in Lagos, it used to be a prison. And like the Freedom Park, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was once detained in it.The late sage was at Her Majestys Broad Street Prison while awaiting trial. After he was sentenced, he was moved to the Calabar Prison. He was there from 1962 to 1965 serving his term for treason.The old Calabar prison gave way to a library under the military administration of the late Brig. U J Esuene. It was not completed until two military regimes later.The civilian administration of Chief Clement Ebri opened it for public use, but like his administration that was cut short in 1993, it was neglected and left unkempt until 1999, when the civilian administration of Donald Duke gave it a modern look with modern amenities.In the twilight of the Liyel Imoke administration, the library deteriorated. The challenges include irregular supply of water and electricity, and lack of relevant books. The ambience does not support learning.The glass walls of the building are largely open and the reading hall is exposed. The glass walls were lost to a disaster. Weeds have taken over portions of the premises. Reptiles and rats are said to have infested sections of it.Gone are the days when the Cross River library and other state-owned libraries used to be places of joy. Now, they make hearts bleed.Many used to spend their weekends in these libraries, but all that stares them in the face now are dilapidated structures with no up to date books.Read Also:Kano, dRPC sign MoU to develop public librariesThe one that brings tears to my eyes is university libraries. It suffers from the scarcity of modern textbooks and journals.Without this, how will teachers and students be in tune with global best practices in their fields' This also makes it difficult for lecturers to update their lecture notes to accommodate modern trends. Lecturers teach with notes they started using in 1978.A polytechnic lecturer once brought his students on a trip to The Nation and, from the questions he was asking, it was obvious he was teaching his students with techniques long jettisoned in modern newsrooms.The superb libraries at the Universities of Cardiff in the United Kingdom, Cambridge in the UK, Ottawa in Canada and Witten-Herdecke in Germany, will show the glaring holes in our education system.Our governments, at all levels, have failed in many ramifications, including leaving our libraries in a poor state. From primary to secondary and tertiary institutions, most libraries are antiquated.Corporate bodies, as part of their social responsibility, can help to change the status quo. The Federal Government model for fixing some bad roads can come to our rescue.President Muhammadu Buhari signed Executive Order 007, creating a scheme that offers tax credits to private firms to build or refurbish roads.The Executive Order, also known as the Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme, provides an incentive for companies willing to build roads.Buhari told CEOs and governors during the signing: Through this scheme, companies that are willing and able to spend their own fund on constructing roads to their factories or farms will recover their construction costs by paying reduced taxes over a period of time.Nineteen roads covering about 794.4 kilometres across 11 states are under the pilot phase of the scheme. Dangote Industries, Lafarge Africa, Unilever Nigeria, Flour Mills of Nigeria, Nigeria LNG, and China Road and Bridge Corporation, have signed up for the scheme.My final take: Our libraries and by extension our education is in as much problem as our roads and from the look of things, governments have shown their inability to lift them up.So, getting the private sector to adopt a library will not be a bad idea. It is a good idea, and if Executive Orders at state and federal levels will help them see it as important, let the president and governors sign the orders.I look forward to seeing firms like UBA, Glo, Nigerian Breweries, Nestle, Cadbury and others adopting public libraries and turning them to global standard.
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