My initial title for this article was fossilisation of the National Library of Nigeria. After a thought, I felt it was too brutal, so I decided to choose the current title. This is to enable many readers to escape the navigation for meaning through metaphors. In many Nigerian ethnic cosmologies and sociolinguistics, there are words used to reject behaviours that are anathemas in a given society. Such words asaaruame, tufiakwa, olorunmaje, allah kiyaye, ýa fo, etc symbolise actions and behaviours that are forbidden.

These snarl words illustrate the sins of the Nigerian State against the National Library of Nigeria (NLN). I am not writing as an Information Science expert or as someone who has worked as a librarian before, but out of toxic nationalism or patriotism if you like. It is also to call to attention how the nation is toying with its education; and in this particular case, the NLN which is symptomatic of the seriousness a country attaches to the education of her people.

That NLN has not been delivered many years after its conception can be equaled to a pregnant woman who after nine months of conception and no child is spewed out, calls for the skillful hands of a surgeon. The library and indeed, the NLN should be a better built infrastructure than the vice president’s building that is reported to have gulped N21 billion. Meanwhile, literature on the construction of NLN shows that TETFUND had in 2022 budgeted N15 billion to complete the NLN in addition to yearly budgetary provisions for the completion of NLN since 2006. Today, the NLN, located in the Central Business District of Abuja is standing like an age-beaten gothic building in the ancient Roman Empire.

A peep into the history of libraries in the world and where its necessity was understood early enough have become the first worlds today. Records have it that the world’s oldest known library is believed to be the library of Ashurbanipal founded sometime in the 7th B.C. for the ‘royal contemplation’ of the Assyrian ruler of Ashurbanipal. This spark of idea of a library by this distant ruler has made this man a trans-generational historical figure.

Significantly, the oldest library that is still in operation is the library of St. Catherine’s monastery, located in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula at the front of Mount Sinai Jebel Musa. Probably to the disbelief of many living women today, Al-Qara-wiyyan library, in Fez, Morocco was founded by a Muslim woman, Fatima El- Fihriyain 859 A.D. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and the oldest in Africa. The Middle East will continue to be recorded as the rock bed of the ocean of civilization but unfortunately plagued by wars booted by religious differences. This is a matter for another day.

The most famous library in the world today is the library of Alexandria. It is famous for its massive storage of classical antiquity. In this respect, use your tongue to count your teeth to imagine the huge foreigners that will visit that library each year and the foreign currencies that will come with it. Diversification of the economy goes beyond digging up minerals, exploiting oil, ploughing the field, etc but institutions, monumental ones such as the library in Alexandria make greater economic sense.

Nigeria does not have monuments. The National Stadium named after Chief MKO Abiola is taken over by crusaders and religious organisations. The football pitch, with many furrows, reminds me of my corrugated primary school field.  I don’t know the status of the National Theatre. I do pray that it is not already traded off.  The NLN would be a prodigious monumental piece, a pride to scholarship and the academia but today, the uncompleted structure is looking like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

A country like ours may not just show leadership by constructing a masterpiece of a library; individuals, institutions can as well add to the splendour of libraries in a country.

Many appeals may have been made to the Federal Government of Nigeria; many budgetary provisions may have been made, yet the NLN stands as national shame and embarrassment. This article is to add to the huge layers of appeals. Now that the National Assembly is considering the 2025 budget, I pray they will consider the tears in this piece to approve a worthwhile amount and for the Executive arm of GOVERNMENT to implement in order to save Nigeria from being termed a hater of education!

Maiyanga PhD, mni (maiyangaalexius@yahoo.com) wrote from Abuja