By Kayode Adeoti
Poor reading culture has been blamed for the lack of development of the education sector in the country.
A hydrologist, Iyanda Anafi Ajibade, made this known during the launching of his two books; ‘Surviving your workplace and your world, and Nairobbery and other poem’ at Whitefield hotel, Ilorin, last Thursday.
Ajibade, who was until his retirement in 2012, the Assistant General Manager of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) averred that the nation’s education system is in shambles needing urgent attention.
He however charged the youth in Kwara State and in Nigeria at large to inculcate the habit of reading in order to improve the education system.
He added that youths of the present generation has failed to find pleasures in reading, adding that computer games has taken the place of study.
“Our reading culture in Nigeria is very poor and if we have to read, we go for magazines and the likes. These books I authored will revive the spirit of reading. I can only encourage people to read them.
“Our education is in shambles just because of poor reading culture, students of this generation like to play computer games than reading, which is not helping the situation.” He however urged the state government to map out strategies that would improve the reading culture of the youth.
Speaking on what informed his literature work, the founder of Waterfall Foundation, a Non Governmental Organisation posited that his experience at the place he had worked formed the thrust of his writings.
According to him, the zeal to write started from tender age, “writing is a form of passion, when I was growing up, I lived with teachers, so the zeal for writing started from that time. “When I got to secondary school, that passion grew more in me and as fate would have it, I was appointed the Chief Editor of Ilorin Grammar School magazine.
“I believed so much that something must have informed the decision of Mr Aderibigbe our English and Literature teacher to give me the appointment.
“Everything about the book is my experience as a civil servant and that of my associates. I’ve worked briefly in a radio station before I was appointed as an assistant General Manager, when I got to Abuja, I had the opportunity to broaden my writing knowledge following the nature of people I met there and the experience I had as a civil servant.”
