Kolawole To Writers: Prizes Won Abroad Based On Negative Writings About Nigeria Are Unpatriotic
WHILE publishing literary works may arguably not pay the bills of publishers, Nigerian literary writers have continued to enjoy noticeable international presence as seen in the accolades and prizes they garner yearly. But one man who is not so impressed is Mr. Samuel Kolawole, MD of University Press Plc. For him Africans, nay Nigerians, who win prizes abroad do so on the platter of negative writings about the continent, and this draws his anger. Such writings he holds up as being unpatriotic as they negate the ethos of the continent's cultural values and help deepen Western stereotypes about Africa. In this interview with ANOTE AJELUOROU, Kolawole bemoaned such negative portrayals and says he accords little respect to such works and charges such writers to reinvent themselves. He also spoke about the growing anti-intellectualism spirit in the country, the absence of libraries and how parents have contributed to poor reading habits and its attendant poor leadership and graduates in the country. Excerpts:
While publishers say that literary works don't pay in Nigeria, a lot of Nigerian writers are winning awards both locally and globally. Is this a contradiction of the publishing scenario? How can local publishers get international affiliates to push this new frontier?
Well, we started the New Horizon imprint as an effort to improve literary publishing as part of our business. People talk a lot about Nigerian authors winning awards. You know, when awards are won, people become popular, and even those who have not read those books want to read them. Awards are not won by the volumes or quantity of books sold. Awards are won based on the quality of the work itself.
So, most of these awards are outside Nigeria. Why are they recognised outside Nigeria and not in Nigeria? It is because that is where the attention is on literary publications not in Nigeria. That is the problem that we have. And it also depends on what they are writing about. If you go to Europe or America, they want to know about the bad things on Nigeria, the things they are suffering from in Nigeria.
Most of the authors who write about Nigerian culture won't win those wards. Go and look at the themes of almost all the books that won awards. It's about how impoverished we are in Nigeria; the problem of adjusting to another culture in America and all that. What about those people who are in Nigeria writing about major things that are happening in our culture? They won't win those awards. And it's after those awards are won that these writers become popular. That is to show you that there is more respect out there for literary works than there is in Nigeria.
In Nigeria people win awards that are being organised locally. The fact is that how many people buy those books? How many people read them? How many people read them? How many got sold in Nigeria? Most of these books sell more outside the country than in Nigeria. If you have your target audience; the theme of what they want, then you know what you can get. If I want to sell a book globally now about Nigeria, I'll get an author to write about how corrupt our people are; how bastardised everything is; how they grow up being tortured; the Niger Delta problem. Believe me, tomorrow it will win an international award. That is the kind, if thing I'm talking about.
In Nigeria how many copies of those books will you sell? How many have you bought? How many have I bought? How many have other people bought? People keep talking about it but they don't ask themselves too. People say publishers are not promoting them. How many books of other writers have you yourself bought? That is the question. You keep complaining that publishers are not pushing. I'm not saying publishers are doing the best when it comes to literary publishing; I've said it before.
It doesn't mean that some of the things that people write about are not correct. But I'm saying that people outside Nigeria will give you more award when you write negative things about your country than when you write positive things. And even in all the negative things happening, there are still some positive things. So, I'm not impressed by all that. I want to see something that promotes Nigerian culture win award internationally. That is when I'll be happy to say we have arrived.
You and some others have frequently used the term 'anti-intellectualism' as being pervasive in Nigeria. What does it mean?
It was Dr. Victor Omololu Olunloyo who made that statement during our anniversary dinner. What he was saying in effect is that you can get rich without being educated. You can be celebrated in Nigeria without working hard, without being intellectually sound. What people want to see is the money; once you are able to make money, once you are able to know the right people, you can get anything done even when you have not made any effort to improve yourself.
That is the anti-intellectualism spirit; it doesn't encourage people to work hard. People will actually tell you that you're just wasting your time going to school acquiring all the degrees. If you want to get things done, this is the way to go about it, that there are short cuts to getting things done. So people won't go all the way. We need to encourage people and appreciate those who go the whole length to learn; that is when other people will want to be like them.
When you celebrate the professors, the teachers, people who are really putting all their lives to be symbols of excellence, that is when other people will really want to be like them. But when you celebrate mediocre, there is very little that you can achieve in terms of improvement because the heroes you celebrate are the heroes people want to emulate. That is the problem.
At the dinner marking 60s of University Press, you also singled out parents for poor reading habits among young people. How culpable are parents really in the slide in Nigeria's learning process?
A lot of the time, we blame other people for our problems. People are quick to blame the government, blame the schools, blame the teachers. We keep blaming everybody without really looking inwards and looking at ourselves as parents. Your children will take after you and copy what you do. If you're fond of reading books, they too will develop reading culture or habit; they'll learn to read books. But when they had never seen you sit down and read any book, how will you encourage them to read? They do what they see you do.
A lot of us are still at fault in developing our children. The world has changed; our children spend most of their time in front of television, computer games, play station 2, DVD and a lot of games. They don't spend time reading and we don't encourage them to read. They know all the actors and actresses in Nollywood; they will sing all the songs of musicians but talk to them about books, they know nothing because they've not been reading.
We should encourage our children to read; we should improve them. Take them to bookshops, to libraries; buy them leisure books to read. Don't just force them to read their Maths or Science or English books. Improve them intellectually; let them read storybooks to learn about their environment.
Most of our children know more about America than they know about their neighbours in Nigeria because they are always watching films about America. They know more about American culture than they know about their own culture. A Yoruba person will not know about the Igbo man but he knows how Americans talk, live their lives than to learn about his neighbour, his environment. You get a lot of this by reading these storybooks, by reading things about your environment.
Take your children off television for sometimes; regulate how they watch television. Of course, you can't prevent them from going on the internet. But most of our children are on social network sites - facebook, jhoos, twitter and all that. Those things are good but let them spend more time learning. When they grow older, they will do all that. Those things were not in existence when we were growing up yet we have become accustomed to them. Let's build them on the one that is important -reading! When they grow up they'll learn on their own and be able to do them. Less TV (all form of technology), more books; that's the secret.
Don't just leave everything to the teachers and school. You pay huge sums of money to satisfy yourself that the children are getting the best education. When they are back from school, they are in front of the television until they go to bed. They don't read books; they don't have the habit. It's not a good thing. We're just wasting our time, wasting our money.
There are no avenues where books are discussed regularly in Nigeria so as to stimulate and deepen reading habits like literary festivals. What can publishers do to bring such things about to also aid their business?
Like I said before, it's what you pay attention to. Most publishers are textbook publishers and so they don't go into literary publishing because they don't sell. People don't buy them. Literary works that sell are those that get on the list of WAEC or NECO, which people have to read for exams from which you get good return. People are not encouraged to even want to publish in that area. It's only recently that University Press said well, even if we don't make money from that area we shouldn't let this idea die, that we should continue to bring out literary works of great writers. We have started doing that again, not really because of the returns we are going to get.
We get more from textbooks because people have no choice; they just have to buy because they have to read in schools. So you have that limitation. Unless you change that orientation, when you organise these events you won't get the kind of response you expect. It's something that should be combined from publishers, government, from parents so everything works together to stimulate reading culture. It's not something you leave to publishers alone. It's something many people should contribute to.
You'll be surprised that when you hold such events, you won't find the kind of people that should come and support. A lot of time you hold event on education, on reading, you won't fund government officials coming; they don't have time for those kinds of event. It should be public-private partnership. Parents also have their own role to play.
If the demand is there, you don't have to persuade publishers on it. But when the demand is not there, when the culture is not there, there is very little that can be done. It needs to start from the grassroots and all of us need to work together to improve it. If for example government says we are doing a programme on reading, we want the support of the private sector; publishers, how can you come in. It will work. But if it's a publisher running around saying I want to improve reading culture, you can't really get anything serious done.
What I'm saying is that it should not be so. Literary works used to be the backbone of publishing. Most publishing companies established their names by the calibre of literary authors they published. It was a pride to say then that look, we're publishing Wole Soyinka, Chukwuemeka Ike, J.P. Clark. Then it used to be like that; these books used to sustain the publishing industry. The dwindling reading culture has affected that tradition. And everybody gas concentrated on textbooks to the detriment of the literary works. It's an unfortunate thing that has affected the nation badly. It has shown in the quality of the people we are producing - the leaders, the graduates and all that.
For decades now, libraries have become mere shadows with empty shelves. How does this development affect publishing?
It affects it in a number of ways. We've been talking about reading culture in Nigeria not being the way it should be. When you have libraries, people develop good reading culture or habits because they can go to the libraries and read books. The more books they find in libraries the more they want to read and the more books they will come out to buy.
Most Nigerian publishers today concentrate on textbooks publication because that is what people are compelled to buy. People hardly read for pleasure any more; that is why we have become sole textbook publishers except a few people who are trying to go into literary publishing. Publishers in Nigeria make more money from textbook publication because people no longer buy books for leisure or pleasure.
But if you have libraries all over the place and people develop reading habits, they will go out and look for other books when they have exhausted the ones in the libraries. So it's affecting publishing negatively; and it's also affecting Nigeria negatively. We are producing people who are experts in their field but illiterate in other fields which is not right because people just read for a particular programme to get certificates and that is the end of it. Outside of that they are illiterate; it shouldn't be.
When you go to a library, you'll read about other areas, read about other cultures or read about other environments. You'll enlighten yourself and become exposed. That is what it means when somebody is educated and not just reading a specific subject area and then you don't know anything about other things.
You'll be surprised at the level of illiteracy that exists when people step out of the area in which they are trained. That you have a Ph.D. in a particular area doesn't mean that you're educated. When you step out of that area, how do you fit into the bigger world? That's what shows that you are educated; it only comes from reading literary works!
