Prof. Olu Lawal of the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Calabar, Cross River State, has decried the high level of illiteracy in Nigeria.
According to him, only about 40% of Nigerians are literate and can communicate well while about three million graduates in the country have poor reading skills.
Prof. Lawal revealed this while delivering a keynote address at the readership promotion campaign organized by the National Library of Nigeria, on Thursday in Calabar.
He said he was disappointed that even students of tertiary institutions have not imbibed reading skills.
The reading campaign with the theme: ‘Working together to build a virile reading nation: challenges and strategies’, is a yearly event aimed at reviving reading culture in students and young people in the society.
According to Lawal, Nigeria cannot grow its industrial and other sectors of the economy with the present low literacy rate.
“For the country to move beyond the present 40%, parents, teachers and other stakeholders must work tirelessly to instill reading culture among youths,” he said.
He attributed the poor reading culture in the country to lack of library infrastructure and materials, negative influence of Information Technology and the consequent patronage of the social media.
“The poor financing of education generally with the concomitant tampering with school and university curriculum in the bureaucracy that enveloped learning at all levels, greatly influenced by political engineering of societal values, has led to near abandonment of schooling in search of wealth,” he added.
Earlier, the National Librarian and Chief Executive Officer, National Library of Nigeria, Prof. Lenrie Aina said the absence of a widespread culture of reading in the case of Nigeria acts as an effective barrier to national development and international competitiveness.
“It is in the light of this that the National Library of Nigeria, which is the apex library in the country, commenced the initiative to undertake the Readership Promotion Campaign in 1981,” he said, adding that this has become a yearly event.
He listed the objectives of the campaign as including the encouragement of reading among Nigerians, promoting the increase of reading materials and identifying obstacles which inhibit reading and ways to eliminate them.