Open Letter to ASUU & ASUP (4):
Books! Books!! Books!!!
“You know, Mr O. J., the things you’ve said seem to ring a bell with me,” said Just Man. “I vaguely remember reading similar things from you many years ago. I’ve actually followed your writings for a bit. When I said you were spouting the same old rubbish, I frankly meant that if your ideas are so correct, why haven’t you made money with them?”
“Probably because I don’t know how to make money.”
“Or is it because, as you said of teachers, their primary goal is not to make money but to impact lives and influence the future? And if I recall, you were once a teacher.”
“I am still a teacher. I took a holiday from the classroom to teach on the pages of a newspaper. Then I went back to the classroom, and now finally I am back to the newspaper.”
“You were, if I recall, writing in The Guardian.”
“Yes, I was one of the founders.”
“I was then in secondary school, but I enjoyed reading your articles and those of some other very fine writers and thinkers.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Just Woman. “I was not even born then!”
“Oh yes you were,” said JMan. “We are talking of the 1980s. You’re not that young, you only act young.”
“But seriously, I think I was in primary school.”
“Well, I have to say that it’s satisfying to be touching lives, then and now.”
“But in the 1980s, computers were hardly in use yet,” said JWoman.
“The world has changed a lot in 30 years. But the principle is the same. . . . The essay you seem to remember was titled ‘Book Pirates of Nigeria, Awake!’ It was published in The Guardian in the mid-1980s. Troubled by the scarcity of books at all levels of the educational system, I proposed a novel solution: that book pirates should simply search and discover all the books needed each year in our primary schools, secondary schools and higher institutions, pirate and reproduce them, and flood the country with them. That way, the national problem of book scarcity is solved: our children get the books to read, and our educational system is salvaged.”
“But, Mr O. J., you shock me!” said JWoman. “How could you advocate piracy? You seem to speak from both sides of your mouth. Where is the consistency? Where are your principles by which you wish to touch lives and influence the future?”
“Well, let’s put it this way, I fool around a lot. I play devil’s advocate sometimes. You have to read me between the lines; and by the time you get to the end of the essay you find that the point is clearly made.”
“Clearly, even if indirectly,” said JMan. “I think I agree with you.”
“So what is the point of your supporting book pirates?”
“The point is that Nigerians are very talented people.”
“You mean Nigeria has many talented people? It’s not the same thing.”
“I stand corrected. Of course not every Nigerian is talented, at least not to the same degree . . .”
“Nor even in the same endeavours.”
“That’s right. But those talented Nigerians, when they set their minds on anything they fasten their teeth on it and won’t let go until they become the world’s best or one of the world’s best in that thing.”
“I think you’re right,” said JMan. “They say we produce some of the best doctors, writers, design engineers, computer engineers, pilots, architects, research scientists . . .”
“Also some of the best—not best but most successful thieves, forgers, 419ers, drug traffickers,” said JWoman.
“Exactly. That’s what I mean. I was merely recognizing that fact. There’s a saying that every family has or ought to have at least one thief, so that when a situation requires thievery, he will do it.”
“That’s going too far, isn’t it?”
“No further than sorting. Don’t take it personally. What I mean is this: publish a book today, and in seven days you will find that book being sold in the go-slow market in a pirated edition.”
“I don’t know about seven days, but that’s true, basically.”
“That was true in the 1980s. It is still true today, 30 years later.”
“So you’re saying why not turn that evil talent of book piracy to some public good by printing and making available some needed school textbooks?”
“Exactly! . . .”
- To be continued
Onwuchekwa Jemie