NAN-ELS-9
Grant
By Oladapo Udom
Lagos, Jan. 19, 2017 (NAN) A publisher, Mr Arthur Zulu, has called on the government to provide grant to renowned writers to enable them to train upcoming writers.
Zulu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the support from government would enable budding writers to learn the basics of writing and publishing, which they could exploit for economic benefits.
Cue in audio
“Nigeria government can give grants to established writers who can now go and teach other writers on how to write and publish their works.
“How did J.K Rowling become rich, become successful, government support when she was writing books, she was on the dole, no money but she was getting support from the government.
“In this country you don’t get any support from the government either as a writer or anything so; we need government to fund things like this.
“We don’t have enough government support for writers in this country and it is so painful.
“Look around Lagos State for example; how many public libraries in Lagos for people to go and read books.
“We don’t have them, just one or two but the foreign governments have libraries for us to read but our own government doesn’t have a good library.’’
Cue out audio
Zulu quoted UNESCO as saying that only one thousand books were published in Nigeria annually compared with one million books published in to the U.S. yearly.
He explained that the advent of the internet had reading culture among people.
He stated that most Nigerian youths go online to either tweet or check their facebook accounts.
“It is only very few people that make use of the internet to carry out research and read up on things that can be beneficial to them,” he said. (NAN)
OUU/ERO/DOR/YEE
Edited by Emmanuel Okara/Nyisom Dore/Emmanuel Yashim
============================================