Readers’ Club: The Importance Of Imbibing A Good Reading Habit

“The best way to hide something from the black man is to put it in a book.”The above age long controversial quote is what many now offended African scholars and literary giants are rising to condemn in strong terms  even though, the truth may not be far-fetched.

The above quote, no doubt is something many of us have heard in rhetoric from our former colonial masters, educators, politicians and parents; which emerging African scholars and a number of members of the ivory tower are condemning  as revolution and explosion in the knowledge based economy sweeps across the African continent.

Of course, such rhetoric centers on the need for black people, particularly, young people to imbibe a good reading habit or culture by picking up a book and read.

However, in this debatable rhetoric lies a belief that a typical average black man does not read and possess some personal disposition to prefer ignorance over enlightenment. They also prefer ‘get rich quick syndrome’ to rigorously and patiently building a sustained career for the future. Little wonder, you hear most youths whenever they are advised to read a book  say, “who reading books epp?”. Admittedly, the increasing poverty line and unemployment rate that had pushed even the graduates into the streets for greener pastures has taken the place of personal development as it doesn’t matter whether it is by fair or foul means.

 Yahoo Yahoo remains the new order; another easiest source of self employment and productive engagement especially, to those who have given up efforts in job hunts. And anybody could be their victims.

Nevertheless, the place of reading both in developed economies and developing economies cannot be overemphasized for the following reasons:
📚 Reading, to the conservatives, is the greatest companion.
📚 Reading helps one to be more confident.📚 Reading develops one’s personality.📚Reading books provides unimaginable food for thoughts .📚 Reading stimulates creativity, helps to build one’s vocabulary and brings out one’s writing skills.📚 In this era of political sycophancy , lips service and praise singing , reading expands one’s horizon and liberates one from political imperialism.
📚 Ideas are formed and new perspective and approach are birthed in the place of reading very widely.📚 It builds one’s self esteem and provides the platform to grow, among other things.
From the light of above, this writer has invested not less than half a million Naira in the past few months on books ranging from leadership, contemporary political memoirs, social documentaries, biographies and autobiographies, business development and Christian books. 

Since the media; print media, multi-media, mainstream or new media reinforced the growing awareness of the importance of the press as an essential institution in an enlightened society. As a publisher of one of the fastest growing online brands, 4thestatereporters.com, I have constantly engaged my brain as I devote a better part of my time to reading books, researching and learning new things; cyberspace laws and internet surfing as the successful companies of the next decade will be ones that use digital tools to reinvent the way they work.

To this end, on Saturday 19th December, 2020, I stepped out for Christmas shopping, not to buy new clothes or shoes but to add  new stock of books to my well furnished library. Not too many people know that I started my earlier corporate career as a book seller in Port Harcourt as an IT student;  moving from one organisation to another to convincingly sell books to our clients and prospective buyers having been denied the opportunity to work in the company of a wealthy Abba billionaire in Port Harcourt, but I never bore any grudges against him or anybody else as I moved on selling books to oil workers in Shell, Total, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Eleme Refineries, etc. Today, I am a better and not a bitter person by the  grace of God as I keep improving on daily basis.

Meanwhile, the following are the 7 powerful books I bought with an estimated budget of N30,000.00 .
✅ Business @ The Speed Of Thought – Bill Gates .
✅ E – Myth Mastery – Michael E. Gerber
✅ Oil , Politics and Voilence: Nigeria’s Military Coup Culture (1966-1976)- Max Siollion.
✅ Game Change : Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin , and the Race of a life time – John Heilemann , Mark Halperin.
 ✅ The Last Governor : Chris Patten & The Handover of Hong Kong – Jonathan Dimbleby.
✅ John Adam – David McCullough ; Pulitzer Prize Winning Author of Truman.
✅ The newest edition of Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary with premium CD resources .
What defines a good writer, reporter or publisher,  can be stated in two simple  forms: The books you read, and training for continued self improvement and development.

 – Njoku Macdonald Obinna writes in from the NDDC Headquarters, Olu Obasanjo Road, GRA,Garden City, Port Harcourt,Rivers State.