* Urged To Promote Love Through Their Writings
children and youths, preserve the cultural heritage of this country, serve as its truly patriotic ambassador-at-large, promote the reading culture and a knowledge-based society. In this struggle and toil, our members have made huge sacrifices, occasionally assisted by benign state apparatuses and literary inclined individuals. We have realised that if our voice is to become stronger as an association, there is need for us to toe the path of self-sufficiency and the re-modeling of our working capacity. That is why our administration of this very important craft union has largely focused in the last few years on re-structuring our operational procedure by opening up to greater strategic partnerships and building a Writers’ Village in Abuja we could call our own. The partnerships are already extending the reach of our association to heights hitherto considered unattainable and by the time the village being built is completed, hopefully in the coming year, we would have laid the foundation for a future for the association without the perennial leanness and muffled voices.”
He furthermore advised Nigerian writers to be objective in their submission especially issues concerning the forthcoming general elections.
According to him, “at this point, it will be apt for us to add our voices to commentaries on the state of the nation and the political conundrum we currently find ourselves in the country. Though, ours, as an association, is non-partisan and non-political, as individu- als we all have a stake in going beyond the text to help shape this country into the path of rectitude and real progress.”
Prof Karen King-aribisala, who was the keynote speaker, spoke extensively of how literature has set beliefs and agendas for communities where it is much regarded.
She believed that people tend to behave based on the doctrines contained in their favourite books as every individual has a different perception of what he or she considers to be truth and can do anything to protect the source of truth.
According to her, “each mega-narrative upholds a book; a physical manifestation of its ideological narrative such as, the Bible or the Communist Manifesto.
‘Believers’ deem these books sacrosanct. Therefore, they seek to preserve and protect them physically, thinking that in so doing, they are protecting the ideas in them. Their opponents have the same mindset: they seek to destroy the books believing that in so doing they are destroying the ideas and ideologies in the books. Literature is replete with examples of this human tendency.’ The book is deemed more powerful and influential than the spiritual and psychological.”
Karen, who is also a researcher and teacher, spoke on the negativities of mega narratives on mega cities and the