Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara has opined that poor reading culture is responsible for the poor leadership being experienced in most African countries including Nigeria.
The former Speaker therefore argued that Nigerians always choose to celebrate mundane things instead of seeking knowledge that will advance them as individuals and the society at large.
Yakubu Dogara was speaking on Saturday in Jos, Plateau state capital during the launch of a book titled: “Without A Name”, written by Emmanuel Gogwim Kayi a retired Permanent Secretary and former Editor of the Nigerian Standard Newspapers.
In the book, Emma Gogwim Kayi narrated how the entire members of the Editorial Board of The Standard Newspaper under his leadership lost their jobs after they published an editorial condemning the military for annulling the June 12, 1993, Presidential election won by late Chief M. K. O Abiola.
Yakubu Dogara attributed the challenges Nigeria and Africa is facing to poor reading culture even among Leaders who are expected to be role models.
According to him, “The difference between those that have made and those that have not made; those that will discover themselves and those that will not, is always hidden in the book. For those of us who are Christians, you remember the story of Daniel. He said he discovered it by the books.
“Even Jesus Christ himself, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and there, he found the book of the Prophet Isaiah and when he opened it, he found a place where it was written – ‘’The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor….’’ . It is Luke chapter 4 verse 14 – 18. So Jesus himself found it in the book.
“It is quite an amazing thing that we choose to celebrate things that don’t make much sense while the real things, efforts like this that we have to put our emphasis on, to read, we don’t bother about them.
“Everything that is precious is hidden. Everything. Even the clothes that we wear is to hide some parts that are precious to us. So, God likewise, God is too big to create something that will not function, or to create something that is not important.
“All of us are differently gifted, massively talented. The difference between the person who remains who will not make it is someone who fails to discover his destiny. And if you must discover your destiny, then you have to go into books.
“You have to. It is said, and I will say it here that before you act, think. But more importantly, before you think, read. For someone who is studious, he doesn’t react to events. When something happens to him, instead of reacting, he responds.
“I wish so many leaders in Africa, in Nigeria, across all strata of position in government will be people who are book worms. Why? Because book worms, those who are addicted to studying, they always end up as acclaimed leaders.
“So I’ll tell you this for free. Life can never give you or offer you more than who you are. But the good thing is that you can become more and the only way you can become more is to improve yourself.
“I say this without the fear of any contradiction. If you are can addict yourself to study, forget about the other books, even if it is just the scripture. You say that you want to become an expert for instance, in the Koran or the Bible, imagine who you’ll be. Just imagine. But a lot of people will walk out of here, they may even get the book and like that pastor who confessed for forgiveness, never even open the book after they have bought it. So, that is the tragedy of the black man.
“This book offers more than the name. it offers more than the name. In it you can see the passion of the author and what was even more gripping to me is the display of character, character which is lacking right now in our leaders in Nigeria. You know when we talk about the whole character, the reason why alphabets are called characters is that they never change. A is A whether in Nigeria, in Jos, in Abuja, anywhere you go to. Z is Z in all the places you go to. 1 is 1, it can never change. So, character is that no one can separate you from your words. The moment they separate you from your words, they can say that you don’t have character. If you can say one thing and do another thing, you don’t have character and that is what we talk about when we say that God is one. The oneness of God is that you cannot separate God from His word. The moment you can separate God’s word from God, He ceases to be God.
“It amazes me how a man, as a young man then, will decide, in spite of opportunities that were offered to him, to stand with the oppressed because it is said that if you choose to stand with the oppressed, you get treated yourself as the oppressed. No wonder he lost his job as at that time. When we are talking about the June 12 1992 election.
“He willingly sacrificed his job in the defence of the oppresses and that is what is lacking now in Nigeria. From page to page is not just his stories he narrated there but is the eloquence with which the narration was made.”
He also advised Nigerians at all levels to write their own stories in books saying, “Some of you who can write too should write their own stories down because we all know what the history of humanity is. In the black world we always rely on oral tradition folklore because these things were never written.
“If we have many like Mr. Kayi we will have all our histories in books. So anyone who can write should write their own stories in books.”
The former Speaker also narrated a story of a Nigerian Pastor who went to Scotland for training, saying, “You’ll find no empty seat in this place if it were a wedding or other occasions. And that tells me something. There is this popular adage that if you want to hide anything from a black man, put it in a book.
“That was dramatised some years ago. I listened to one of our Pastors and he told a story and he had to repent over that story. He had gone to Scotland for pastoral training. Lo and behold, there was this white man who was part of the class and he had this wonderful book that he was willing to offer to him to go and read too.
“And he did offer the book and said, read this book, you’ll learn a lot from it. So, according to him, after two weeks, the white pastor asked him =, have you read the book? He said yes. He said, from cover to cover? He said yes. He said you are a hundred percent sure? He said yes.
“He said did you find anything in the book? He said no. He said ‘’give me the book, my friend, you didn’t read the book. At page 70 of the book, I put $100 in it.’’ He opened page 70 and lo and behold, that $100 was there. So, he was saying this story in repentance of the lie he told. He never read that book. But that is the truth.”
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