Poor reading culture responsible for Africa’s leadership failure – Senator Agbo
A former lawmaker representing Ebonyi North Senatorial District in the Senate, Distinguished Senator Anthony Agbo, has identified lack of reading culture as one of the major causes of leadership failure on the African continent.
Agbo, an insightful politician and respected author, made the remarks in a statement he issued on Tuesday, April 23 to mark ‘World Book Day’.
According to him, “The secret to Africa’s greatness is hidden in Books. And one of the greatest factors behind failure of leadership and development in Nigeria and across Africa is lack of reading culture.
“I am therefore calling on the Federal and State Governments, Nigeria’s citadels of learning, the Media, Institutions and Organisations, and NGOs in Nigeria, to all join hands on measures to awaken the consciousness and compulsive culture of reading among Nigerians.
“The reading culture I am talking about here is not just going to the University to obtain a degree, possibly up to PhD level; it has to do with the acquisition of cultural literacy, which in extension has to do with the progressive acquisition of sufficient veracity and diversity of knowledge that comfortably puts people sufficiently in tune with the intellectual, leadership, political, historical, scientific, and cultural dynamics of the global society, so as to fire their vision and imagination, and expose and polish them to standard nobility of character for civilised and patriotic contribution to the development of their society. Nations that do not begin to possess this can never achieve much greatness.”
He added that “Nigeria is a country where a large book shop in a big city can only get about one customer out of every one thousand customers gotten by a drinking joint located near it. And a nation where a Professor in a particular academic discipline may never have heard or known of Steve Biko, Leonardo Da Vinci, Tutankamun or a black hole, etc. It is a nation where a literate person cannot sacrifice N3000 to buy one book to read even for a year, but can spend N25,000 at one sitting in a pepper soup/drinking joint and can repeat same three times in a week. It is extremely difficult for a nation of this nature to be successful and great in a competitive world.”
The ex-parliamentarian and writer of high repute has authored a number of books including ‘Africa: The Glory, The Curse, The Remedy’ and the most recent ‘Governance Under Gross Limitations’, where he revealed the ancient secret, mystery and truth that explains the failure of leadership and backwardness in Africa.