20 schools to feature in RAN 2017

Twenty secondary schools in Oyo State are set to participate in the forthcoming 2017 Read Across Nigeria (RAN) event, according to a statement by the National Coordinator of RAN, Mr. Wole Adedoyin.

Mr Adedoyin disclosed that the 20 schools are drawn from both private and public schools in about four local government areas of the state.

The focus of this year’s RAN will be the works of pioneer northern Nigerian novelist, Hafsat Abdulwaheed, whose 1970 novella ‘So Aljannan Duniya’ is widely viewed as the purveyor of the soyayya novellas.

Abdulwaheed, who uses her works to highlight the plight of the womenfolk in Northern Nigeria, was born in Kano and had her primary education in the city. Since the publication of her first novel, she has published some five titles since then and had even contested for governor of Zamfara State.

The event, which will come up in May, will see literary lovers read from the works of Abdulwaheed, while encouraging more females to take to indigenous writing.

Last year’s edition of RAN was in honour of Hon. Dr. Wale Okediran, a former National President of the Association of Nigerian Authors and the Executive Chairman of the Ebedi Writers Residency in Iseyin, Oyo State. The 2016 readings took place in 20 states of the federation.