My new article describes a transformational role universities can play in catalyzing sustainable development by emphasizing social science disciplines and research methods that assist local communities’ planning and implementing projects for the future they want to create.

By Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir
Marrakech

Most of our world is experiencing a time of public discontent that now necessitates accomplishing a better and different driver of renewal for our cities and rural places. Let us consider a new approach, rooted in a long-held understanding of the purpose of education, in which the experience develops the student’s critical consciousness and capacity that is integral to the process of social change. To that end, a proposed new type of institution, the University of Participatory Learning and Action (UPLA), would serve the need for community development and innovation.

Few academicians in humanities today actively pursue social change as an inseparable part of their research and as a purposeful outcome of their work. Most social scientists stop once they are able to provide explanations for causes of social problems that they decide are most important to the public. Some of them continue to detail inherently top-down solutions based on their analysis of (usually) limited quantitative data gathered from extractive questionnaires and interviews. Much of this research methodology creates the very attitudes they then measure.

Whether a crisis in public health, natural disaster response, or social and economic stability, our resilience depends upon exceptional support for local communities to advance smarter and equitable enterprises. UPLA will be a generator of local people’s projects that they then manage so as to meet community-wide needs in food security, health, livelihoods, education, and other sectors of life. It will be a planning and implementing hub for students and educators from all backgrounds seeking sustainable, widespread prosperity by assisting community-driven research and action.

A hopeful pattern we are seeing in our world is that universities are requiring students to engage in volunteerism with human service organizations. Universities increasingly seek to impact in the best of ways their neighboring communities and beyond. Still, the social sciences, even if born from humanity’s journey to improve the general welfare, see most of their practitioners not embracing their own disciplines’ activist identities, lest their investigations be labeled as “biased” and they are no longer viewed as scientists.

The social science pendulum has been swinging in recent decades, alongside the global ascendency of knowledge (from practice) that communities’ self-described development priorities and solutions are most determinant factors for sustainability. Ethnographic data therefore really matter. UPLA’s time has come. Our collective urgency for widespread growth, security, and a new environmental dawn, must now bring UPLA’s arrival.

UPLA students and faculty will facilitate inclusive dialogue on local project design and implementation (participatory action research). Within two years, with a student body of 600 guided by 25 faculty, hundreds of projects in the civil, public, and private sectors will have been identified and be ready for implementation, initiatives that reinvest and build cohesion, transforming lives and counties. UPLA graduates will be empowered and will empower, forged from the transformative experience of remedying social disparity.Humanities in our time must engage people to discover and act.

UPLA will offer the following 13 social sciences that have strong foundations in service and collaborative learning and research, and advancing community participation: Adult Education, Anthropology, Applied Economics, Architectural Planning, Communications, Development Studies, Geography, Psychology, Public Affairs and Politics, Public Health, Social Work, Sociology, and Women’s and Gender Studies.

UPLA will also be an international education center for students and professionals to receive coaching in applying field methods with people of towns, villages, neighborhoods and districts—women and men, young and older—to collectively analyze their situations and opportunities for enhancing their livelihoods. Then, based on their information and consulting with technical experts and partners, local communities will fulfill their self-determined action plans.

Methods come from hundreds of such activities that exist across the disciplines and sectors, that go by as many names, with “participatory” being in a number of them. Such methods are primarily qualitative and promote interaction and information-sharing. They assist communities in forging visions and goals, in defining timelines and detailing budgets. They use visual tools not requiring participants’ literacy, and illuminate contextualized realities so beneficiaries can fashion strategies conducive for success.

UPLA will be a house of the people’s knowledge that assists their decision-making about their futures. It could therefore not only appropriately inform the frameworks of global commitments, such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, but also dramatically help accomplish them. UPLA will be at the forefront of pedagogical entrepreneurship that enables global communication pathways to gain broad grassroots perspectives across nations, a compelling new form of interaction to strengthen solidarity.

How do we establish UPLA? We begin with the relationships that we have, in the places where we live. There are many ideal locations for UPLA in the United States. Unrelenting poverty in upstate New York, for example, has left abandoned educational centers, the renovation and use of which could provide economic stimulus for those communities.

Likewise, while the High Atlas Foundation has collaborated with Moroccan public and private universities to provide “learning-by-doing” development workshops, it would be more productive to catalyze all research of academic programs with local people. We could directly and measurably improve conditions with a UPLA center in the northeast of the country that is struggling for realized opportunity, toward the mountains south of Marrakech, or north of Errachidia where systemic poverty is concentrated.

Are there public officials and agencies, corporate leaders and businesses, and individuals, who are willing to partner, to dedicate a building, to fund a community’s entrepreneurial idea, to embed or advocate embedding UPLA into national and global rebuilding plans? We must do this together in order for students, teachers, and communities to achieve sustainable societies with full action-research capabilities.

Students of Ibn Zohr University in Agadir (Morocco) experientially learning the participatory planning method, Mapping Our Community (Photo by HAF; 10 December 2024).
Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir is a sociologist and President of the High Atlas Foundation based in Marrakech, Morocco.

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By IfeanyiChukwu Afuba

Between 1985 and 2000, the Aka Circle of Artists was a prominent feature in Nigeria’s art scene with her yearly group exhibitions. On the occasion of her 1990 outing, Nsikak Essien, a member of the 13-man fraternity, came up with a work titled Armageddon. It was a montage of horrifying news stories, each as shocking and saddening as the other. The long run of tragedies, natural and man-made, all happening in a few years, truly evoked a feeling of damnation. Where are we headed, was the natural reaction the artist’s portrait elicited. And yet, those were the days of “innocence” compared to the present hellish times. Thirty – five years ago, we heard of kidnapping only in thriller fiction. Today, kidnappers, ritualists, cultists, killer herdsmen, bandits, separatist gunmen, and what have you, rain havoc everywhere, leaving the streets flowing with blood. The violence of criminality has inflicted a climate of desperation on many of us; eroded reason in much of Nigerian society, triggering an upsurge in the terrorism of jungle justice. We seem caught helplessly in this double tragedy that tears at the moral fabric of our society. Where do we go from here?

Daily, the base side of our being is on the ascent, nurturing and spewing hate; as it were, overwhelming the natural instincts of compassion and brotherhood. How have human beings, born with emotions of pity and fear turned into beasts; into unfeeling sadists; into savages with insatiable appetites for torture? This is the question that comes to mind when you watch videos of the harrowing experiences kidnap victims are subjected to in the bush. What kind of heart condemns fellow humanity to sleep in thick forests, exposed to the elements? How do the captors activate the cold-mindedness to beat their hostages routinely and ruthlessly in the bid to speed up ransom payment? Are their ears sealed with wax that they do not hear the anguished cries of their captives? Are their stimuli castrated that they cannot be moved by the painful cry of the tortured? In one particularly heart-wrenching video, the sadistic gunmen set fire to a plastic container and let the balls of fire drop on the hostages. Are these monsters or human beings? Can anyone who has not sold himself or herself to the devil act so outrageously?

And there are responsible – looking men and women who collaborate with these heartless barbarians in various ways. Theirs too is another abhorrent story; an equally dangerous angle draped with deceptive cover of respectability. There are the spies who monitor the roads for the terrorists, who feed the criminals with information on security deployment and movements. They communicate the ruffians in the bush on the location of checkpoints, the strength of security personnel manning them and when the patrol teams depart. There are the other set of spies who identity and mount surveillance on individuals with high kidnap value. Their daily routine is quietly studied, processed and followed up for some time to determine regular movement patterns. This intelligence gathering is provided by harmless-looking individuals in our communities who nevertheless know the horror that awaits those they prey on. We have those who help the extortionists collect and put the blood ransom to use. At this stage, you must wonder, how with the flow of funds that pass through their hands, these outlaws always look gaunt and wretched. And there are those who provide them with needed supplies on a regular basis. These accomplices mingle with other citizens on the streets daily, managing to put on calm, smiling faces. Where is their humanity?

We also contend with the unrestrained violating the sanctity and dignity of life, right on the streets, in our homes and neighbourhoods. What do we make of the scary stories that make headlines in both traditional and social media? In the second week of January 2025 we had: “Man Rapes 3-Year-Old Girl”; “Female Corper Butchered By Gospel Singer”; Man Sets Lover Ablaze During Argument in Abuja”. And there’s the video of a lady staff accused of theft in a boutique being brutalised by three men. And so on and so forth. Now, it seems a worst case scenario, a vicious cycle of violence that we have on our hands.

Except a formidable security team intervenes promptly and decisively, a suspect caught at public crime scene will most probably receive jungle justice. And people do not flinch at the thought of deliberately setting a human being on fire. Some of us can stand at close quarters to watch the victim writhing in unspeakable pain of consuming fire – without wincing empathically. Then, one more form of dehumanisation – stripping and parading suspects naked. This madness of the mob is not restricted to crime suspects. Sexual offenders are also subjected to this sleazy assault. A few days ago I saw photos of a young man and woman accused of adultery in Cameroun forced to squeeze themselves into a pair of jeans trousers!

What do the mobs gain from these contemptible humiliations of accused persons? How does stripping a fellow of his human dignity address the wrong they presumably committed? The very idea is sick; enforcing such arbitrariness as social order is nothing but descent to animal level. And as always with mob action, the danger of condemning innocent persons guilty is always there. Remember the Aluu 4? In the blind rage of a mob, four young gentlemen, undergraduates of the University of Port Harcourt were pronounced robbers, beaten black and blue, then slowly burnt to death on October 5, 2012! And here was one of them, cringing and drawing his body away from the flames only to be pushed back again and again to the furnace of excruciating pain. The video I watched showed an acquiescing crowd comprising teenagers, youth, middle-aged and a sprinkling of elderly people. If you could not save the young men, did you have to encourage the murderers in their evil deed?

Perhaps, psychoanalytic theories offer some help in understanding extremist behaviour. They are generally viewed as bordering on “maladjustment and personality dysfunction.” While some experts believe that abused childhood could trigger violent reactions later in life, Freudian studies indicate that an individual’s id, quest for power and dominance could brew a monster. Thus, care should be taken not to adopt a simplistic explanation of barbarism.

Would the rationalisation of abandonment and dispossession by society advanced in analysis of those camped in the forests also apply to domestic aggressors? If want of money alone was the prod to crime, what do we say about rising cases of hostages killed even with payment of ransom? Even in cases of ritual killing to make money, we must distinguish between need and greed. Just as the ego and superego offer the means to overcome raw instincts of the id, modern society still produces heroes of humanity. These testaments of universal brotherhood, accommodation of the other, empathy for the distressed and the common good have the capacity to heal society if widely embraced.

On a hot, dry afternoon sometime in 1977 or 1978, we idled about in the dormitory at College of the Immaculate Conception, Enugu, waiting for the lunch bell. We were generally tired after the day’s classes. But from one end of the dormitory, I heard rising voices, a growing altercation, scuffles and seconds later, a fight broke out. As efforts were made to separate the two boys locked in tight grips, word got to the housemaster who lived close by. Five minutes later, the two combatants and a small number of house members were at the court of Mighty, the house master, sitting on the porch of the quarters where he lived. After listening to the accounts of what led to the fight, he went inside the house. Everyone was expecting him to emerge with canes. Reappearing shortly after, he held two ten Kobo coins, emitting shimmering rays of fresh mint, in his hands. “It’s the hunger”, he said as he stepped out. We all moped at him as though he had spoken Greek. Handing out a coin to each of them, Mighty continued. “You buy a loaf of bread for yourself. A hungry man is an angry man.” The assembly erupted in excitement, and as it did so, tension, ill feeling, grudges gave way to lightheartedness, grace and sense of overcoming.

The likes of Mr Auwal Dankode, a cleaner, who in August 2024 returned ten thousand dollars found in an aircraft in Kano, counter the argument that poverty compels resort to crime. Nelson Mandela proved himself a hero of humanity when on becoming President of South Africa, he resisted the temptation to take revenge against those who put him behind bars for twenty – seven years. And this was a man whose mid life, the crucial stage between youth and old age when major achievements are recorded – had been brutally taken away from him. But he came out from prison preaching reconciliation. On May 13 1981, a Turkish gunman, Agca Mehmet Ali fired four shots at Pope John Paul II at close range as he greeted a crowd at St Peter’s Square, Vatican City.

The Pope was hit in the abdomen, right arm as well as left arm and had to undergo a four-hour surgery. On regaining consciousness, the pontiff made a short broadcast assuring that he was out of danger, and asked for prayers, not for himself, but for his attacker. On discharge from hospital, the Pope promptly visited Agca in his cell and told him: I forgive you. Following a release application by the now-acclaimed saint, Agca was set free in 2000. Many would have seen the picture making the rounds on social media of a white lady picking up a thoroughly emaciated toddler said to have been abandoned somewhere in Calabar. The kid, so skinny, could barely stand. But there’s an accompanying photo of the same lad, now an able-bodied youth, beaming with smiles on matriculation gown with the angelic lady hugging him. What a powerful win for humanity!

By IfeanyiChukwu Afuba

Col Ben Odogwu, Biafra’s Director of Military Intelligence, titled his war memoir, No Place to Hide. I guess that can be said of Nigeria of the present. North, south, east, west, every part of the country is reeling from an upsurge in violent criminality. Bandits continue to wreak havoc in parts of the north. On January 16, 2025, news broke of the shocking abduction of wife of a retired AIG, Mrs Hakeem Odumosu at the gate of her residence by heavily armed gunmen. And still on very daring assaults by criminal gangs this January, thirty – six passengers, including three soldiers were said to have been abducted from a passenger bus in Enugu State.

Then, with an unmistakable flash of deja vu, a trader, Mr Sunday Okafor was reported to have been killed with a parcel bomb at Onitsha. Given the alarming scale of crime for some time now, it’s not surprising that extreme, nay, dangerous measures are being proposed as solutions. One of such controversial proposals came from the Human Rights Writers Association (Huriwa), which canvassed the return of Bakassi Boys in Anambra State. Coming from an enlightened organisation, and a known voice in civil society, there’s the likelihood that sections of society may waive necessary scrutiny of the seemingly attractive call to embrace it readily. Often, there’s a heavy price to pay when populism is the major consideration in statecraft. So, let’s put the matter in context.

Under the headline “Huriwa Seeks Return of Dreaded Bakassi Boys to Tackle Insecurity in Southeast”, ThisDay, January 17, 2025, reported that National Coordinator of the body, Emmanuel Onwubiko made the proposal at Abuja.

“We suggest that since the existing security measures in place, including the establishment of state-wide vigilantes, have proven insufficient to bring about the defeat of these armed terrorists, there is now the need for the governments of the South-East of Nigeria to consider re-introducing the dreaded Bakassi Boys, train them, arm them, provide strict regulations with adherence to the Rule of Law, so these armed but regulated Bakassi Boys can be authorised to confront the South East based terror gangs.

We call on the governor of Anambra State, Mr. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, to consult the defunct leadership of old Bakassi Boys in Anambra State, to provide strategic guidelines for the new Bakassi Boys to adhere to so as to degrade, decimate and liquidate these armed terrorists, kidnappers and hoodlums unleashing violence of massive scales in all of South East of Nigeria. but more especially in Anambra State.”

Notwithstanding that the Anambra State Homeland Security Law 2025 has just come into effect, a broader view of the insecurity problem is necessary for better understanding of underlying issues. This appreciation will subsequently aid the recommendation of effective strategies and tactics for containing the situation, including the possible connection with Bakassi Boys and other formulas. It’s to be noted that Nigeria’s security challenge is a mixed bag. While they all pose threats to lives, property, political as well as socio-economic stability, there are differences in type and space of occurrence.

Boko Haram is conceived in the mould of the Taliban and ISIS and so presents a caliphate threat to Nigeria’s sovereignty. For now, the group’s operation is located mainly in parts of the northwest and northeast. This is to be differentiated from the onslaught of killer herdsmen pushing to appropriate grazing land in the middle belt, southwest and southeast. Separatist agitation produced its own brand of militancy in the southeast. Theirs is a campaign to coerce support for power ambitions using the secessionist framework. Then, of course, there is criminality common to all parts of Nigeria, exemplified by armed robbery, kidnapping, cannibalisation of public infrastructure and so on.

From this outlay of crime nature, we can distil their sources – a vital requirement for projecting panacea. Interestingly, there is a convergence on the motivation for much of the violence the country is facing. There is a common foundation in ideology. Thus, the insurgency in the north borders on extremist religious ideology; the bloody attacks misleadingly labelled farmers-herders clash, is also driven by ideology, belief in ethnic superiority and expansionism. Likewise, separatist movements in the southeast are rooted in perceptions of discrimination and suppression of the region. For all of these campaigns, the very task of asserting their respective missions creates violent conflicts.
These violent movements irrespective of their orientation, realise that they are up against the power of a State; of constituted authority.

They realise that their organisations are burdened by both illegitimacy and lack of resources. A critical reading of their operations suggests that the entities have placed financial capacity ahead of legitimacy. It should suffice that demonstration of their power ultimately accords them recognition as stakeholders to be negotiated with. But the demand of keeping their machinery running had to be immediately met. This rationale most probably gave rise to the wider reign of kidnapping as it provides funds for the prosecution of the organisations’ agenda. Some terrorist groups also go as far as imposing taxes on communities at their mercy.

As already noted, there are other shades of criminality. In this regard, we talk about crime influenced by purely economic consideration and criminality as a function of health cum personality disorder. Certainly, robbery and kidnapping are strictly business ventures for many gangs. Economic reasons would also account for oil bunkering, pipelines theft, cannibalisation of transformers and cables, ritual killings, human trafficking and a host of other vices. On the other hand, psychology tends to view extreme abhorrent behaviour such as those exhibited in cult killings and senseless gang wars as incidents of health disorder. Given the varied character of criminality ravaging the country, it follows that effective managing of the crises must reflect both the general and specific causes.

This discourse does not intend to address the former beyond the common thread of arms proliferation. The need to tackle the easy acquisition of firearms cannot be overemphasized. How do the gangs – big and small, organised and loose – how do these gangs terrorising Nigerians procure their assault weapons? Are they smuggled into the country or manufactured locally? Are there security breaches of institutions lawfully permitted to bear arms that provides a conduit for arms transfers? Confiscation and control of illegal arms trafficking must be the starting point of a war against insecurity. If the government puts a strong check on the illicit flow of arms, many criminal groups would be incapacitated.

Aside the military operations against insurgency, the situation in the northwest and northeast calls for educational campaign. For decades, the north has been at the bottom of pupil school enrollment statistics. This numerical relegation is a major reason behind the concept of “educationally disadvantaged states”. The significant population of out-of-school children are vulnerable to the indoctrination of religious terror cells. As the saying goes, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. The body of illiterate and unemployed youths presents recruitment pool for terrorist militias.

The government should stave off this danger by ensuring that school-age children are not left to roam the streets. They need access to quality education as well as orientation on citizenship. It’s good that History is back in the curriculum. The study of Nigerian history will help promote the cause of citizenship consciousness. However, it needs to be emphasised that orientations on national values should be accompanied by state empowerment programmes. A felt impression of the government’s concern for her citizens is necessary to ward off anti-State activism.

Relatedly, the execution of anti-crime strategies across the country will achieve little without attention to the dire socio-economic condition of the average Nigerian. Governments at all levels need to remember the maxim that a hungry man is an angry man. Nigeria’s underdeveloped status poses enough social challenges for the citizenry. Added to that is the bandwagon effect of withdrawn subsidy in Nigeria’s fuel economy. Even the middle class can barely afford the high cost of food today. As it were, the threat of starvation alone is a powerful motivation to crime. At no other time has the case for welfarism been so forceful as now. Considerable funds will be freed up for public service if there’s strong crackdown on corruption. Even when government pleads lack of funds to operate a welfare system, government will still spend money to feed prison inmates and run correctional services. As De Courson puts it, “more unequal societies tend to have higher crime as well as lower social trust.” From the perspectives of sociology, psychology and criminology, Nigeria’s current crime situation is probably a rebellion against the injustice of our system.

And what solutions can the Bakassi Boys bring in Anambra State; in the southeast? Although the advocacy for the Bakassi Boys did not spell out their superior mechanism in crime fighting, the takeaway from their previous outing between 2000 and 2002 was summary “trial” and execution of suspects. The purported trial of arrested suspects was nothing more than the hunches of the interrogators. However, many held the belief that the conviction of suspects was by fetish means. To complete the circle of barbarity, condemned suspects were allegedly mowed down with matchet cuts. It was a dark period of savagery when Anambra State’s landscape was painted red with blood. One therefore finds it shocking that a human rights community, of all constituencies, is recommending the very antithesis of human rights and due process. What contributions did the Bakassi outfit make to crime investigation analysis? What value did the body add to crime detection methods? What trail did it blaze in crime prevention strategies?

What legacy did the gun and machete-totting militia leave except that of cheapening human life and dignity? The clause of “providing strict regulations under the rule of way” does not take away the danger posed by such militia. Emergency vigilantes are often under pressure of expectation; and not being organic bodies, and without the conditioning of self-regulation, tend to put result before rules. And this is the challenge the Agunaechemba Security Service recently launched in Anambra State is likely to have. The haste to deliver in the face of massive outcry against insecurity usually pulls unorthodox security outfits on the slippery road of excesses.

A proactive approach to crime fighting, and one with emphasis on intelligence gathering, offers higher dividend than reliance on physical prowess, however intimidating. In the long run, a professionally-driven, permanent and civic-oriented security service holds out better prospects for protection of the public space. That qualification lies in State Police.

By Richard Odusanya

Writing and reading play crucial societal roles, impacting various aspects of life, culture, and communication. Having the skills to communicate, read, and write is vital for social and economic development. It allows individuals to expand their knowledge and understanding of society. … In modern society and our globalized world, literacy is far more diverse than simply reading a book and understanding what we have read.

Put succinctly, I am persuaded by the culture of writing and reading which is so important right now not only in books but also in what is written in posts. Writing conveys ideas that others can read, concepts readers may never have thought about before. At its core, Herodotus a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus was the first writer to systematically investigate historical events. He is referred to as “The Father of History”, a title conferred by the ancient Roman orator Cicero.

Suffice it to say that, historians are the writers of history. They are responsible for researching, analyzing, and interpreting past events, people, and societies, and then presenting their findings in writing. Historians use a variety of sources, including written documents, archaeological artifacts, and oral histories, to construct a narrative of the past.

From a philosophical stance, this contribution critically examines writing and reading culture in the third-world countries particularly Nigeria. Writing and reading play crucial societal roles, impacting various aspects of life, culture, and communication. As such, writing makes a difference in a society that read.

Generally, Nigerians prefer to be entertained rather than enlightened. A highly CERTIFICATED but poorly EDUCATED country/society when compared to some African countries, especially the eastern and southern African countries! I think it’s a fundamental issue that we must begin to tackle from the grassroots – we value certificates more than actual knowledge. That’s one of the reasons craft doesn’t thrive here.

Sadly, a society that prioritizes certificates over actual knowledge may hinder the thriving of crafts and other practical expertise. In many societies I know, including some parts of Nigeria, there is often a heavy emphasis on formal education and obtaining certificates, particularly from universities and other institutions. This creates a mindset where academic qualifications are seen as the primary means to success, while practical skills, craftsmanship, or vocational knowledge might be undervalued or overlooked.

Following from the above, this tends to stifle the development of crafts for several reasons:

1) Lack of recognition and support: Craftsmanship and skills acquired outside formal educational institutions may not receive the same recognition or prestige. If society places more value on certificates, people may be DISCOURAGED from pursuing crafts, thinking they are less valuable or legitimate. I guess it might have been a key reason why Craft Schools don’t survive in our part of the world particularly Nigeria.

2) Limited opportunity: People may feel pressured to pursue degrees or certifications instead of apprenticeships or hands-on training in trades. This results in a gap between what people learn in schools and the practical skills needed to succeed in industries like craftsmanship, which rely on hands-on experience rather than academic qualifications.

3) Economic Focus: In societies (like Nigeria), where formal certificates are more highly prized, there may be fewer opportunities for people in the craft industry to receive financial support, mentorship, or infrastructure to scale their work. This limits the growth of craft industries, which can thrive with proper investment and market support.

However, it’s also important to recognize that some societies are slowly shifting toward valuing practical skills, and initiatives are promoting vocational training and crafts. These industries are increasingly seen as vital to economic diversification and the development of local economies.

So, on balance, while certificates hold value in many sectors, a society that only values them at the expense of practical knowledge and craftsmanship may limit the growth and recognition of those skilled in trades or crafts. Balancing academic learning and practical skill development can lead to a more holistic and dynamic society.

In conclusion, I’d like to share with our esteemed readers one of the feedback received:

“Oga Richard, thanks for sharing this thoughtful snippet.

*The referenced statement touches on a significant issue regarding the relationship between literacy, societal progress, and cultural priorities.

“Writing indeed plays a crucial role in shaping and reflecting society, but the readership often determines the effectiveness of writing. In societies where reading is not widespread or prioritized, the impact of written works may be limited.

*In the context of Nigeria, while it is true that many people may not engage in reading as much due to economic struggles, lack of access to books, or cultural factors, it’s also important to recognize that writing—whether in literature, journalism, or academia—has a profound potential to influence social change. However, writing must find its way to the people to have a meaningful impact. This can be challenging when other factors, such as religious or economic pressures, dominate daily life.

*The idea that Nigerians are “chasing shadows and praying for miracles” can be interpreted as a critique of societal tendencies to seek quick, often unattainable solutions rather than engaging with practical, systematic change. This is not unique to Nigeria, but it highlights the difficulty of transforming a culture of hope into one of critical thought, planning, and action.

*That said, countless Nigerians are dedicated to reading, writing, and using their intellectual abilities to promote change. However, fostering a reading culture and bridging the gap between literature and everyday life remains an ongoing challenge. Empowering more people through education, access to information, and encouraging reading as both a form of empowerment and entertainment could drive societal progress more sustainably.” (adeABANIDA)

Finally, as we search for a better country and seek to build a golden monument from the ruins of yesteryears and the anguish of today, let us reconnect with the realities of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as we march forward with grace. God bless Nigeria.

Richard Odusanya
[email protected]