Ajayi Enjoins Nigerian Students To Inculcate Reading Culture
counselling, experience, perseverance and lots of compromise to get us where we are now? Of course it has. Every good marriage has.
Do I sometimes wish the funds invested in Barca Academy and especially the Elite team ended up in my soup pot? And housekeeping allowance! But really, the joy I get from seeing you give young people hope more than makes up for the sacrifices I have had to make.
As you have advanced in age and have experienced extremely tough situations, I see you are more accommodating of people less smart than you. I also see you are kinder. You appreciate better those who care for you and even those who do not. You now instinctively understand better the other person’s position, whether they appear to be right or wrong.
I tell you to start to take notes that will become useful when you begin to write your life story and I hope that this golden jubilee and the situations in which we have most recently found ourselves in will finally galvanize you to do so. What does not kill you only makes you stronger. Young people in Africa need genuine role models, real people, people they can relate to, people they have access to, people who can help them dream and help them believe they can realize their dreams.
So on this glorious event of your golden jubilee, the children and I wish you excellent health, enough wealth to give away to those who have less, and sunshine happiness that will radiate to others.
Because indeed, as your parents named you, you are Memeredena, Man of the Future.
Happy birthday.
THE Vice Chancellor of Crawford University, Igbesa, Ogun State, Professor Isaac Rotimi Ajayi, has appealed to pupils, students and adults regardless of their callings to imbibe reading culture.
The call was made at this year’s celebration of World Book Day, which was organised by the institution’s librarians, purposely to celebrate accomplished authors and their works, the book, enjoyment it offers, prospects and reading culture.
While saying, “our lives have been shaped by the types of books we read,” Ajayi stressed the importance of “active reading or a life dedicated to reading to include acquisition of knowledge, better understanding of events, people and places; building of self-confidence and inter-personal skills; enhancement of professional and academic capacity.”
In the same vein, the acting Librarian of Crawford, Elizabeth Bukunola Lateef (Chartered), nostalgically enumerated the books her age groups read in their days were popular authors’ series like, Enid Blyton, Pacesetters and African authors.
In her words, “nowadays students know more about celebrities than they know popular novels and their authors.”
Consequently, she advised pupils, students and teachers in attendance, as well as the general public, “to develop, encourage and promote reading habits, by making proper use of resources in schools libraries and various places.”
Lateef went further to say that the dream to become lawyers, doctors, architects, accountants, pilots, editors and others by students could only be attained through books and reading.
Highlights of the event include, recitation of authors and their works by Crawford University Nursery and Primary School pupils, which excited the audience, inter school debating competition between Saso College and Vital Link College with the topic, ‘The social media is more important to students’ academic performance than books.’ Saso College won the contest. To crown the event, talks in support of books and readers were given by Professor Alaba Simpson and Professor James Oludotun.