The Aba Book Club has lamented that the lack of a library in the Enyimba city is a huge setback to the current government free education scheme, stressing that going to school without proper access to important books for further study is tantamount to a waste of energy.
Co-founder of the Aba Book Club, Osondu Mbonu, who spoke in Aba during ” The Nonprofit Breakfast Dialogue Abia State” organised by the Centre for Development Practice (CEDEP), USA, government’s continuous decision to allow touts to occupy the land mapped out for the construction of the Aba City library at Constitution Crescent is a total betrayal to Abia children seeking education.
“A whole lot of Abia children have no access to books they can’t afford. This is a huge setback to the current government free education policy because, if you look at the government data, you’ll see that about 300,000 children have been captured in the free education scheme of the government, so, with that data, how many of these children have access to library materials?
“Let’s be sincere: a child who currently joins the free education scheme of the government, considering the available standards, may not be able to afford important textbooks for study. So, without access to books, what’s the importance of a free education scheme?
“We need to start saying these truths to our leaders. When you get to Constitution Crescent, you will see land mapped out for a permanent site for the Aba library, and the foundation was done in 1981. Today, Abia State has allowed touts to allow a site meant for an academic library to be converted to an office where touts impound vehicles.”
Mbonu said that around May 2019, he and other members of the Aba Book Club staged a peaceful demonstration about the condition of the existing library in the city, which attracted the attention of the then government in power, but lamented that seven years after, nothing has been done to salvage the situation.
“Since 2019, when we led a protest about the condition of our library in Aba. That protest, which was done around May 2019, attracted the attention of the then government, who sent their commissioner for education, Prof. Ikechi Mgboji, to ascertain what we were talking about then.
“It’s sad that seven years after that incident, nothing has been done about the library in Aba. Since the Abia State government has refused to do something about the library, we on our own, renovated the children’s department of that library. It is also sad that while I was passing through market road last week, I saw the windows have been vandalized.
“I wonder what must have happened to the fans and other things we provided. The library is assumed to be the university of the poor, because the child of the man who can’t afford quality education can go there and have access to books.”
He went on to further lament that the Abia society is unfortunately a society where government and the people do not know the importance of a library.
“Out of the 15 library outstations in Aba, apart from the one in Library Avenue in Umuahia, the rest are nothing to write home about. The Abia State library board appears to be sitting and doing nothing.
“A certain amount of money was mapped out for the establishment of libraries and reading centres across the 184 wards in Abia State, but as a member of the Aba Book Club, I can assure you that none of these things had happened yet. We’ve not seen any. We monitor these things.”
Mbonu said that for several years, people misunderstood Aba society as just a place of buying and selling and described such a notion as unacceptable because Aba, by records, has produced the best brains in the Eastern Region of Nigeria.
“That notion is not true. History and current affairs show that Aba is equally a place of top intellectualism, and we’re doing our best to change that narrative, but unfortunately, we have leaders who are not cooperating.
“When a child doesn’t have access to a library and the parents don’t have access to a library, what kind of education are we giving? What do you expect? Who are you training? It keeps trickling down to the least person in our society, as we have people moving about without information except little bits of gossip.
“Returning Aba to its past glorious days must include a modern library because you cannot build a city in a vacuum. People must study to behave properly and understand the environment where they dwell.
“How would you rate somebody who doesn’t know the value of a library? How do you expect such a person to know the value of a book? And when you don’t know the value of books, it means you don’t know the value of education.”
Mbonu stressed that the solution still lies with engagement, as the Aba Book Club has concluded plans to engage the new Abia state library, stressing, “We will reach out to them to know the budget mapped out for the library and how many of them are coming to Aba.”
He stressed that despite their passion to see Aba get back on its feet academically, they still need the government, stressing that it is unfortunate that sometimes they are misunderstood and seen as working for the opposition or may even be called all sorts of derogatory names.
“So, we believe that the best option is to engage, and we’re going to keep engaging, not that we’ve not been doing so. However, we’re noticing recently that the engagement is the key as long as the government is willing to listen, as we’ve seen by our experience with a local government here.”
