President Goodluck Jonathan’s Bring back The Book campaign hit the University of Benin campus, Benin City, Edo State last Thursday with the theme ‘Jonathan: The Future of the Book’ at the Main Auditorium of the university that was packed with students eager to be part of Mr. President’s book revolution.
It had two of Nollywood star speakers as models to help propagate the book culture amongst students of Nigerian universities. Comedian MC Casino made the event memorable with his deft performance along with other campus music stars.
The arrival of Senior Special Assistant to the President on Research, Documentation and Strategy, Mr. Oronto Douglas and his team, which included two of Nollywood’s actors Kanayo O. Kanayo and Stephanie Okereke, created excitement amongst the students. On the team, too, was Mr. Ken Saro-Wiwa (Jnr), son of the late minority rights activist, also from the Presidency.
In his introductory remarks about the book mission of Jonathan’s team to the campus, Student Affairs Assistant Dean. Mr. F.O. Osadolor, recounted the struggles Nigerian students had previously embarked upon to entrench the book culture in Nigeria. He disclosed that in the 1980s, and as a politically conscious student himself, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) had been at the forefront of agitation for a free and qualitative education for all Nigerians. He praised Mr. President for establishing nine Federal Universities, saying it was the mark of an educated President, who knew the importance of education, an educated man himself, and the first to be a PhD holder among Nigerian leaders.
Osadolor praised the project’s initiator President Goodluck Jonathan for establishing nine Federal Universities as a measure of reducing admission headaches as more students would be admitted in the face of inadequacies of the existing universities and the large numbers of applicants usually left without admission every year. Moreso, he said the universities would create jobs and take many Nigerians from the crowded labour market and ensure that more Nigerians received knowledge. He premised these on Jonathan’s insistence that every Nigerian had access to education having struggled himself to get one as an indigent student. He assured his students that with Jonathan, Nigeria’s educational problems would being solved so as to make learning fun for them.
Then Tamara of Naija Sings obviously wooed the student audience as they gently rocked along with her.
Douglas said he was a bonafide citizen of Benin and recalled his student days with Osadolor and their exploits in ousting military dictatorship that started the deterioration in Nigeria’s educational system with their anti-educational policies, especially their aversion to knowledge acquisition that tended to challenge their authority and aversion to university autonomy. He told them, “Educational system today is not the best that we can get. It is ten months since Jonathan has been President and he has restated education as one of his priorities. It is important that for Nigeria to be a great nation, you here who will be governors, senators, engineers, doctors, lawyers and presidents should be properly educated and made to understand the value of the book to the great Nigerian project that Mr. President wants to evolve.
“Jonathan is the man who has said he is going to fix the educational system; he has said that every Nigerian that comes from a humble beginning must have opportunity of aspiring to the best that he can, even the Presidency. He believes in the unity of Nigeria, of a system that has to change for the better.
“We chose Uniben to Bring Back The Book because if its uniqueness and its dynamism. The books being given here are symbolism of the book campaign. You have to decide what your future will be. Jonathan is emphasising to you today the need for excellence, brilliance, unity and togetherness as virtues that must be entrenched in all of you to achieve the Nigeria of our dream”.
Douglas played into the students’ fantasy when he told them they were the most unique and dynamic. The auditorium exploded in wild jubilation in response.
On his part, Kanayo said: “We need to receive that consciousness about the book for our collective development. Jonathan has not claimed that he owns all the intelligence, but he means well. He is a story of hope. Being a stakeholder and former teacher, still a teacher, he knows the problems in the university system like no electricity, poor hostels, as you are saying. We owe Nigeria a fresh breath, and this is a new dawn”.
Saro-Wiwa (Jnr) told them the story of his father, his agitation for the rights of minority people of Nigeria and his campaign for an educated citizenry and how he was hanged for them. He said he was in Oakland, New Zealand, when his father was killed. He explained how his father encouraged his Ogoni people to use their brains to stop the guns trained at them by the oil companies and the complicit Nigerian state.
He told them, “You are the future of Nigeria in the various individual roles you will play in your chosen courses here. Jonathan is going to transform Nigeria for good and for you, the youths. Use your brains to change Nigeria for the better. Students, stand up for your future!”
But it was screen idol Okereke that cast the most powerful spell on the students. While they had been a bit restive and making side comments while the other speakers had the podium, Okereke simply subdued them; they were so star-struck and seemed to breathe in every of her being into themselves. She told them that although they weren’t on campus to campaign, a new era had come, which every Nigerian needed to embrace. Jonathan, she said, had brought government closer home to Nigerians as against what previously obtained, saying Jonathan had opened the doors of governance for all Nigerian to access.
When Nigerians were trooping out to foreign lands, Okereke said she took a personal stand to stick it out at home and be treated like a king rather than as a dishwasher abroad. She tasked the students to make similar determined decision for the country’s best interest. She asserted, “Nollywood is the biggest branding thing we have apart from oil. Right from his days as Deputy Governor of Bayelsa, Jonathan has said these people (in Nollywood) need to be recognised as the biggest branding people we have.
“Now, he also understands that education is key; that it is what makes a man go far in life. He is going to concentrate on education because education builds our confidence. This is the time for all of you. I ask myself, What’s the legacy I’m going to leave behind? It is that Nigeria moves forward! I’ve never registered to before until now. Jonathan has made us have hope. Don’t let this transformation process pass you by. The future is in your hands; use it wisely. The next country that will be reckoned with in the world is going to be Nigeria”.
In a sense, Jonathan’s Bring Back The Book campaign campus launch would seem to have come at the right time: it would enable the President’s right hand man Douglas to get firsthand information on the state of things on university campuses although no student was given a chance to respond on behalf of the students on the true state of things. This was an anomaly that should be addressed in their next stop so the students could directly address Mr. President about the challenges they face on campus and how they could be resolved for effective learning to take place.
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