L-R, Former Managing Director, National Mirror, Steve Ayorinde; the convener of Destiny Walk, Kola Oyeyemi; Chief Executive Officer, Spicy Chrysalis, Adaeze Adolphy, and the Managing Director, ThisDay Newspaper, Eniola Bello, at the ReadersRLeaders Destiny Walk to create awareness for reading, last weekend, in Anthony Village, Lagos.
A group of concerned Nigerians have arranged a ‘Walk’ to raise awareness and revive the reading culture among the populace. The project tagged ‘Destiny Walk’ is spearheaded by eminent Nigerians and philanthropists led by Kola Oyeyemi, the General Manager, Consumer Marketing, MTN.
The awareness walk is slated July 12, 2014, with the Rowe Park, Yaba, in Lagos as the take-off point. In view of the importance attached to reviving the vanishing reading culture, quite a number of socialites and technocrats from different sectors including education, banking and entertainment such as Ben Bruce, Joseph Benjamin, Olu Jacobs and more have indicated interest to participate in the project.
At a media briefing which held at Prince of Anthony Hotel, Lagos, the lead convener, Mr. Oyeyemi laments the diminishing reading culture among Nigerian youth. For him, ‘We can no longer take for granted the risk we run if we allow the status quo to remain. This is because only readers can lead and our future leaders are already exhibiting apathy to knowledge acquisition through reading’.
He recalls, ‘Nigerian intellectuals used to be the brides of the western world because of their high intellectual capacity, but what we have currently are students and artisans who can hardly compete favourably locally let alone on the global platform’.
He stresses that what has led to this ugly situation is indifference to reading and that if nothing is done urgently to revive the culture, the country may end up producing mediocre leaders who are shallow minded and, worse, unemployable graduates. This will ultimately affect the nation’s growth and keep it on the high end of the under-developed nations’ index.
The ‘Destiny Walk’ is seen as a step in the right direction. In recent time, cases have been made for such project especially in the face of mass failure recorded in the school certificate examination.
A few concerned Nigerians have been known to be in the fore-front of this campaign to revive the reading culture at all educational levels. An instance was the Port Harcourt Book Festival, held weeks ago, where erudite scholars like Wole Soyinka and Chimamanda Adiche spoke extensively on the subject. {fcomments}
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