Dr Camillus Ukah, President, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), has said that literature helped to mediate the rascality of Nigeria’s two biggest writers – Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe.
According to him, it is the same way the reading of creative literature will assist in shaping the minds of Nigerians to prevent their involvement in violence.
Ukah said this on Saturday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, on the sidelines of ANA’s 40th Anniversary/Annual Convention in Abuja.
Ukah said: “We believe that creative literature is a missing link between our nation and development.
“Our late founding father, Chinua Achebe, said that story was our guide and escort. Without the story, we just jump into candle fence like blind beggars.
“That story is literature and symbolic because it is your story that guides you; it tells you what you did wrong before and the need to correct it.”
According to him, literature is also key to the security of any nation because literature grooms the mind and a groomed mind cannot get involved in untidy violence.
“For example, look at Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laurette, with all his rascality, if not for literature, somebody who went and seized a radio station.
“Would it have been difficult for him to get to the bush with an AK-47? Bbut literature has groomed his rascality. It has given his radical tendencies a purpose. As far as Wole Soyinka is concerned, his abiding principle is humanity.
“Look at Achebe, in his stubborn quietness, literature had groomed him and redirected his energy to developing the mind of man.
“Literature is imperative to a nation’s security and development. So, literature has a lot to offer to a nation’s building and development.
“I think the earlier we take the promotion of literature seriously, the better for us.
“For all of us who have children, you can experiment with it. If you give your child one creative literature book every week, that child will become a star, irrespective of discipline whether science or art.
“What it does is open the mind of that child. So, literature is key to any development,” the ANA boss said.
Dr John Asein, Director-General of Nigerian Copyright Commission, told NAN that the commission would partner ANA leadership to sustain the association’s creative literature books project.
Asein said that the commission, in collaboration with ANA, would ensure the proper monitoring of the creative literature books given to 40 schools in the country.
“We want the provision of creative literature books to be a sustainable programme.
“So, it is not just about giving them books. We want to also adopt those 40 schools and go to them one after the other, encourage them in areas of creativity, respect for copyright and for them to develop their talents.
“So, some days they will also become authors. We will work with ANA on that to get the list from you and make it a sustainable programme,” Asein said.
According to him, there is the need to go to those schools always because you cannot plant a seed and then go and think it will just grow, you must go back and check whether the weed is disturbing.
“So, these children need to be given constant encouragement that it doesn’t matter how things appear today, there is a future.
“We will work together to rebuild the character, passion and vision of these children.
“I thank ANA for starting by putting books in their hands because the schools may end up keeping those books in their libraries and before you know the shelves are even gone.
“So, with this arrangement, I will ensure that from our state offices, I will hand a number of schools to each state for proper monitoring,” he said.
