Mr President, keep our borders closed

Whether forged by fire or faith, libraries before the 18th Century did not operate the way they do today. In his paper on the history of modern libraries, Professor Thomas Augst said the old archives chained books to the desk in order to keep them safe. Further, they did not allow books to be circulated; this therefore, restricted access and circulation.

However, there is so much access today, yet even as early as the beginning of the 20th Century, there were limitations to access even in the United States the so-called bastion of democracy and equality.

In the early 18th Century, Benjamin Franklin and friends introduced a subscription based model to the library world when they formed the Library Company of Philadelphia. They operated like a joint stock company where members pooled resources together for their mutual benefits. The members could borrow books and take home. The library was also stocked based on the expressed interest of the subscribed members.

But the subscription based system had flaws. There were barriers and segregation based on class, race and gender. Also, you had to have the money to be able to afford the subscription.

In 1845, the UK Parliament passed the Museum Act and in 1850 passed the Public Library Act which gave towns the opportunity to open their own libraries.

The combination of these measures brought about explosion of public libraries and a shift in the way people thought about them.

Soon philanthropists started funding libraries. For instance Andrew Carnegie used his vast fortune to fund 1,689 libraries across the US - and hundreds more in countries like Malaysia, Mauritius, Serbia and South Africa; more than 2,500 in total around the world.

National security and economic development are settled interests for every nation. Nigeria is not an exception especially as regards her border closure in order to address domestic security, economic, and even social concerns.

Although there are concerns from many quarters (ECOWAS, individual ECOWAS nations and even some uninformed/ misinformed Nigerians), the Buhari administration’s border policy is in the right direction and in the long term will serve Nigeria and Nigerians.

The dictates of globalization

“Andrew Carnegie was once the richest man in the world,” Susan Sternberg wrote for NPR. “Coming as a dirt poor kid from Scotland to the U.S., by the 1880s he’d built an empire in steel - and then gave it all away: $60 million to fund a system of 1,689 public libraries across the country.

“Carnegie donated $300,000 to build Washington, D.C.’s oldest library - a beautiful beaux arts building that dates back to 1903. Inscribed above the doorway are the words: Science, Poetry, History. The building was “dedicated to the diffusion of knowledge.”

The writer Paul Dickson noted that the Carnegie libraries also played important aesthetic roles in the cities.

Public libraries later became the symbol of social equality as Susan Sternberg noted in an article for NPR that black people said in the early 20th Century, the public libraries were the only place in downtown in which they were allowed to use the bathroom.

“It [Carnegie Library in D.C.] opened in 1903 to women, children, all races - African-Americans remember when it was the only place downtown where they could use the bathrooms. During the Depression, D.C.’s Carnegie Library was called “the intellectual breadline.” No one had any money, so you went there to feed your brain,” Sternberg wrote.

Yet, even at that time, some of these libraries often fell short of providing services to all citizens without bias. That was why black librarians in the US and the civil rights movement opened their own libraries. Professor Michael Fox said after the American civil war, the black communities in the south prioritized building schools instead of libraries but by early 20th Century, black-run libraries began to spread nationwide.

Surprisingly, human beings are still not beyond the destruction have led nations to integrate their economies in order to create a common strong market that can swim against the currents of global competition. Nations join unions as a result of the commonality of interests. But nations enter into such unions, most of the times, without a contingency plan as to how to protect their national interests. However, only a purposeful leadership is conscious of the fact that in unions a nation’s sovereignty is not ceded. That nation can either explore new avenues of engagement or a total withdrawal.

Individual EVOWAS nations have voiced concern on Nigeria’s border closure citing its impact on of books even today. In the night of August 25-26, 1992, Serbian forces destroyed the National and University Library of Bosnia during which two million documents disappeared in a blaze. Also, during the World War II, Japanese forces destroyed Chinese libraries. And as early as 2003, libraries were their respective economies. What they deliberately misunderstand is that the imperatives of national interests supersede any other especially when those interests are of security concern. Apart from smuggling drugs and other contraband food items which Nigeria is producing, arms are also smuggled through the land borders and these arms find their way to either Boko Haram or other insurgent groups in the country. No country under a right thinking leader will allow this.

As mentioned earlier, certain misinformed/uninformed and deliberate mischief makers in Nigeria think the border closure puts destroyed in Iraq during the war with the United States. The foregoing examples show that wars still pose great risks to libraries even in the 21st Century.

The Library Company of Philadelphia’s model was made possible because of the introduction

Nigerians in hardship. Although the misinformed/uninformed are sincere in their calls because they have basic understanding of the issue, the deliberate mischief makers are reactionary people that attack the policy because it has crippled their lucrative but illicit “businesses”.

Nigeria has more than two thirds of the GDP and more than half the population of the ECOWAS region. We do not need a friend that leads death to our doorsteps. In realistic terms, Nigeria must not allow some nations to continue intercepting our economy.

The border policy is important for Nigeria to address three important issues: national security, of mass printing which brought down the cost of producing a book. Due to technology there was no longer the need to chain books to the desk. When mass production increased in the 19th Century, it was now easy to make multiple copies of the same book. Books no longer cost as much as one’s house. To boot, economic development and social revolution and attitudinal change. The border closure policy will help reduce the proliferation of arms and criminals into Nigeria thereby boosting the Nigerian military’s fight against the various insurgencies.

On the economic front, the border closure policy has already started impacting on Nigeria’s agricultural sector. Going by the CBN’s figures, the agricultural sector has increased many times over in billions of naira. What Nigeria is doing is in line with global practices of protectionism for local industries. You can’t export just anything into the USA, China or even other sister