Assin Godstime is a man of many parts. He is is an inventor, author and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of publishing firm, Pen-Digital Nigeria Publishers. In this interview with Adewale Oshodi, he speaks on one of his published works, Generation of Mad People, where he highlighted the problem of internet fraud among youths, and how its message has attracted the attention of the education ministries in Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Lagos and Rivers states. Excerpts:
YOUR book, Generation of Mad People, will definitely raise eyebrows, but what is it that you are trying to share with the world through the book?
The world is progressive, and progressiveness comes with a task. The task of curtailing the wrongs or ills of the society rests on us all. For me, I correct the ills of the society through my books. I develop the strategy of speaking truth to power through my books, and I ensure that they have huge moral lessons on my readers. Generation of Mad People, is no doubt a captivating title written with the sole of discouraging internet fraudsters. Beyond the theme being centered on ‘Yahoo’, it also discourages people of the danger involved in being an armed robber, a kidnapper, a bad leader, etc. The book exposes us to the contemporary Nigerian society, where a leader could own fleet of cars with gigantic tyres and intentionally neglect the bad roads leading to his house to enable others with smaller vehicles endure the dilapidated state, particularly when it rains. The book also tackles the recklessness in the police force, the negligence in high offices and the retrogressiveness of our society due to bad leadership and incompetency.
What impact do you think the book, which has already been approved by the ministry of education in Rivers and Edo states, have on students?
Information is power. Information is core to liberation or emancipation. Generation of Mad People is a remedy to human emancipation and liberation, particularly for youths. The book serves as a cure to persuading youths to desist from internet crimes, alias Yahoo. The importance of the text to the public has attracted the approval of Ministries of Education in Edo and Rivers States. In these states, the book was approved for JSS 3 to enable it to attract wide readership, and then be used for the State Junior WASCE. From experience, books in JSS 3 attract wider readership because the students know that they needed to go through the book to enable them to attempt the questions to be set on it. This has stood the book out.
You have published so many books, both fiction and non-fiction, and there is this insinuation that Nigerians don’t read, how do you juxtapose this with the acceptance of your published works?
Writing, for me, is information. The importance of information to human life cannot be ignored or neglected. I strongly believe in information. But I must also state clearly that not all information is necessary to human development or growth. Most authors suffer in getting patronage because they lack information. A good book has information that society lacks. It serves as a tool to educate and correct immoralities and wrongs of our society. Once a book solves a problem, the reader (s) cannot neglect it. In my case, I have enjoyed high readership because I have information that the society needs to progress rapidly, and I devote time to write Literature texts that will build our children morally. Another impediment that most writers suffer is the use of difficult words to communicate messages. More of these writers try to impress readers, rather than educate them. A reader gets tired of a book that he or he has to go through the dictionary to look up a word at every given sentence. The erroneous claim that Nigerians don’t read does not mean that good books do not sell. Sadly, the internet and phones have, indeed, worsened our reading culture to a large extent. For me, I have been lucky to get high patronage because my books have attracted the approval of government through States Ministry of Education in Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers and Lagos. Unfortunately, the high demands on my books have also attracted high level of piracy by the booksellers.
As a publisher and writer, you have an understanding of the areas of friction between authors and publishers, so how do you think both can work together for the benefit of the publishing industry and reading public.
Authorship and publishing are not the same. One who writes a book is completely different from a publisher. Before now, authorship ends with writing. The writer of a book has to contract his or her books to a publisher after writing. The publisher takes up the manuscript, gives it to his team of editors to vet or edit before he publishes. In the time past, publishers handled from thorough editing, printing, collating of the pages, binding and trimming of the pages after everything. But this seems to have changed with time. Many authors now act in dual capacities, because of the disappointments they have undergone in the hands of publishers. From experience, thus far, most authors dont get their due rewards of their intellectual property. The publishers smartly persuade authors to get their books, publish and sell and still find it difficult to keep to the simple agreement they entered with these authors.
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