The Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Abuja Chapter, has said it will donate 40,000 books to 40 schools across the country, to mark her 40th anniversary.
Addressing a press conference on Saturday, Chairman of the Strategic Planning Committee of ANA at 40, Taiwo Akerele, said the donation would be done during the conference.
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He said the gesture was to serve as ANA’s corporate social responsibility to the schools.
Akerele said Nigerian education sector was faced with crises, which was also noted by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG).
He said the 40th anniversary of the ANA, scheduled to hold from November 3-6 2021, with the theme: “Resilience and Nation-building, the role of Nigerian literature”, was apt to the national educational challenges.
According to him, Emeritus Professor Femi Osifisan, a renowned writer and academic of repute will speak on the theme, while a keynote would be delivered by Prof Akachi Adimorah Ezeigbo, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Lagos.
He said that ANA was collaborating with the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Education to ensure that western education is blended with the country’s traditional culture in most of the places that are educationally disadvantaged to ensure that people are properly educated.
He said, “We are partnering with SUBEBs; our people are writing; we are pushing our books out there to ensure that people have access to good books that will change their orientation and give them a vision for a better society; good books that will change the narrative about how a society should be governed; good books about ethics, good books about nutrition, about respect, about our culture and tradition.”
The association’s northern region Spokesperson, Umar Yogiza, said that the 40,000 books were authored by Nigerians who are members of ANA.
Yogiza said he books cover subject areas such as mental health, literature, and insecurity as well as any subject that is good for the Nigerian public.
