NIGERIA BOOK DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Developed By: 

The Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation (HCAF)

Northern Writers Forum (NWF)

Polarsphere Media Limited

INTRODUCTION

The development of an ideal nation depends on the reading culture of its citizens. As such, if Nigeria is to develop to a level developed countries have attained, the reading culture must be deliberately upgraded through a national plan that makes her citizens develop their thinking faculties for work and order.

The politicians in the first republic were well-read people. They had very good libraries in their homes and across their regions. Some of them even had mobile library schemes in their administrations. The Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Samuel Akintola, Dennis Osadebey, Michael Opara, Emeka Ojukwu and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe were writers and people of letters, and all of them had very good libraries. Their libraries and avid readership contributed to their sound global perspectives and national concern for development. There was hardly any of them that wasn’t convincing when they spoke to the people. There was so much healthy competitive development across regions, which has endured until today. This is why their period is still considered the golden period of Nigeria’s ideological, development-inclined and people-centred political era.  

During the precolonial era in Nigeria, the triumvirate scholars of the Sokoto caliphate had very good libraries and could write books that generations after they read. Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, Abdullahi Fodio and Muhammadu Bello had a collection of books that inspired them. Women like Nana Asmau, among others, wrote poems and stories chronicling essential events in their time.

The military interregnum in Nigerian politics also brought in soldiers who were poets into the Nigerian Government and politics. Soldiers like Mamman Jiya Vatsa and Domkat Bali wrote poems about their Nigerian Civil War experiences. These soldiers had very good libraries that stood them out as soldiers of value and sound administrators. General Mamman Jiya Vatsa was a member of the Association of Nigeria Authors. He even gave an expanse of land to the association to develop a writers’ village in Abuja. Domkat Bali’s wife was also a writer of traditional folktales of Tarok Land. Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is also a writer. 

The Administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007 could not set up a book development agency where writers could promote creative writing, publishing and enhancement of reading culture in Nigeria. National ideals are better promoted through creative books. However, in March 2005, Nigerians donated over N4 billion to the Obasanjo Presidential Library initiative even though he could not fix the book industry in the Country at that time. The Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) was established in March 2017. Located in Abeokuta, the library is the first in Africa. It is modelled after similar Presidential Libraries in the United States, a concept started in 1939 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who donated his official documents for national use. The library, a private edifice of the former United States President, holds about fifteen million documents and two million books. Other subsequent administrations in Nigeria, too, were guilty of the offence against imaginative writing in Nigeria. Meanwhile, it must be noted that N4b is enough to overhaul the Nigerian book industry and set a national book development agenda in motion for the country.

However, during the regime of Late President Umar Musa Yar’adua and the eventual takeover by Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, that beamed the light of hope on reading and book development. On the 27th of December 2010, President Jonathan launched the “Bring Back the Book” campaign. It attracted several literary giants, poets, publishers and writers; amongst them were J.P. Clark, Mabel Segun, Otunba Lawal Solarin, Jerry Agada, a former Minister of Education and then president of the Association of Nigeria Authors, Odia Ofeimun, Reuben Abati, Fatima Akilu, Dapo Adeniyi and others. Also present were Mr Ben Bruce, former Governors of Ogun and Borno States, the Bayelsa State Deputy Governor, Speaker, House of Representatives, Mr. Dimeji Bankole and some Senators. The Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, was with President Goodluck during the reading session with pupils in the morning. Thousands of students from 23 Secondary Schools, including two universities, besieged the ultra-modern EXPO Hall, Eko Hotel, Lagos, where the then President took the battle for sustainable reading culture and book development. Nigerians received this policy but did not go beyond the launch as nothing meaningful occurred thereafter until his tenure ended in 2015.

The former Governor of Niger State, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, was more ambitious in getting the citizens to read by establishing the Niger State Book Development Agency in 2012 and also named a library after Late Cyprian Ekwensi, born in Minna. Prof. Wole Soyinka commissioned the library. The agency, which is the first and the only one of its kind in Nigeria took care of the interest of writers and reading culture in the state and in Nigeria to a large extent. Literary activities picked up on an international scale and the image of Nigeria in the literary world had bolstered with the quality of guests that besieged Niger State annually for an international colloquium. Former President, Juaqin Chisano of Mozambique came; Prof. Atukei Okhai, the President of the Pan-African Writers Association and Professors Kofi Ahindoho, Pius Adesanmi and Odia Ofeimun all came to Niger State at different times. 

Governor Abubakar Sani Bello has sustained the Agency for the past four years. Today, Niger State is the largest producer of teen authors in Nigeria. And Niger East Senatorial District is the epicentre of this production. Similarly, light efforts were also done by former Governors of Borno State, Kasim Shettima, Mimiko, Fayemi, Rotimi Amaechi, and El’Rufai to develop reading by their citizens.

It is against this background that the proposal for a Nigeria Book Development Plan is made as a wakeup call to the Administration of Muhammadu Buhari to create a Book Agency or a Presidential Committee for the promotion of imaginative writing, development of books and reading culture, to enhance critical thinking among adults, youths and children in Nigeria. 

The potentials of the citizens of Nigeria would be enhanced if an agency or a committee is established to take care of creative and artistic expressions of writers. If copyrights of writers and creative products are protected and preserved, the country would be able to earn respect and huge foreign exchange and foreign direct investments from the intellectual properties of these creative personalities. So far, Nigeria is the largest producer of writers in Africa.

PREAMBLE

The NIGERIA BOOK DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE proposal is an initiative of the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation, Northern Writers’ Forum and Polarsphere Media Limited, aimed at the inauguration of a national book development agenda for Nigeria. 

The current All Progressives Congress (APC) Government headed by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Federal level does not have any book development agenda for the past four years since it came into power. States and Local Government Areas have no book development agenda as well. Out of the 36 states of the federation, only Niger State Government has a Book Development Agency now known as, (NIGER STATE BOOK AND OTHER INTELLECTUAL RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY) which is exclusively for literary book development initiatives and arts, including film. It was a contribution proposed by the Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation to the Niger State Government in 2012 which was approved and established by Dr, Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, the immediate past Governor. 

SCOPE

Book development in this proposal means producing and encouraging literary books: novel; poetry; play; biography; children’s book; books about cities; books about environment; leadership; essays; quotation or aphorism; Nigerian peoples; science fiction; cartoons; picture books; books on art and craft; inventions; and history, in hard copy (physical form) or electronic format.

THE PHILOSOPHY

The Nigeria Book Development Plan has the underlining principles of triggering a general reading agenda in the Nigerian child and the people through the proliferation of books in our neighbourhoods and streets. The prevalence of books at every corner of the country will create immediate access and association with them which will lead to the intended reading, serving as a trigger for continued provocation of quality thoughts in the citizenry thereby creating a people dependent on knowledge to drive their national lives at public and private capacities for the general development of the country. The Nigeria Book Development Plan is built on four basic driver-schemes:

1. National Teen Authorship Scheme;
2. Nigeria Book Hawker Scheme;
3. Neighbourhood Library Scheme; and 
4. National Publishing Scheme.

THE BROAD OBJECTIVES OF THE NIGERIA BOOK DEVELOPMENT PLAN COVERING THE FOUR DRIVER-SCHEMES

The broad objectives for the Nigeria Book Development Plan covering the four driver-schemes are stated below. The details of the specific objectives of each driver-scheme are stated elsewhere in this proposal:

1. To create regular access and affordability to books by taking them to the streets and neighbourhoods of Nigeria through the Nigeria Book Hawker Scheme;
2. To cause the Nigerian child to associate with books and read them by their presence in their neighbourhoods, especially those written by their peers in the teen authorship scheme, as a primary access point and the books written by professional Nigerian writers as a secondary access point;
3. To promote home-grown library initiatives, through Neighbourhood Library Scheme as the major access point of books to Nigerian homes, and the child, and ensuring their presence on the streets and neighbourhoods across the country;
4. To discover the next generation of Nigerian writers through the teen authorship scheme for mentoring, writing and publishing. This, with time, evolves into the prevalence of writers in our immediate communities who become the conscience, checkersand reminders to national ideals and development; and
5. To develop a national publishing institution for regular authors through access to credit, to accelerate reading, intellectual competency, cultural documentation, historicity of national and local lives, artistic and entertainment buoyancy, cohesive dwelling among peoples of Nigeria which is built on knowledge for development.

THE FOUR DRIVER SCHEMES OF THE NIGERIA BOOK DEVELOPMENT PLAN

The Nigeria Book Development Plan shall be driven by four other grassroots schemes: the Nigerian Teen Authorship Scheme, the Nigeria Book Hawker Scheme, the Neighbourhood Library Scheme and the National Publishing Scheme. These schemes will be domiciled at the Nigeria Book Development Agency or under a Presidential Implementation Committee.

DRIVER-SCHEME ONE: NIGERIAN TEEN AUTHORSHIP SCHEME

Introduction

Nigeria can introduce a more fundamentally functional project that has the potential to outshine all the existing channels of literary development and promotion in the country. It will be the NIGERIA TEEN AUTHORS SERIES. The series shall be administered through the Nigeria Book Development Plan. 

Scope

It will be a secondary school student authorship scheme. Students with potential and interest in creative writing in secondary and primary schools are shortlisted for a mentoring period. After four months, a story book of between fifty and sixty pages is written by a student-writer reflecting a problem among young people in the community. Subsequently, the teen author is presented to the public as a guest writer in a programme to be called Teen Authors Flash. It’s an open critique session on the book where the community is present. A mentor is appointed for the student-author who will work with the writer until the book is perfected for publishing. After publishing, copies are sold through the Nigeria Book Hawker Scheme.

Objectives

1. To establish and promote child-to-child advocacy on variety of societal issues. Over the years, adults have taught and counselled teens, but the scheme will seek the child to speak to the child through the stories and poems they write and read among themselves. 
2. To create role models among school children for other students.
3. To encourage professionalism in creative writing from school age.
4. To create a functional platform for developing excellent literary works, knowledge and scholarship.
5. To proliferate the society with books written by young people among young people and for young people in Nigeria towards developing book culture and societal reorientation. 
6. To encourage keeping bookshelves at home for children.
7. To help develop language competence and effective communication at young age.
8. To redirect the energy of individuals towards becoming functional citizens in a society that they will inherit tomorrow.
9. To continuously stimulate citizens in critical thinking and intellectual development at young age.

Impact of the Scheme on Buhari Government

1. It has the potential for substituting all the existing literary protocols in Nigeria for which the Buhari Government takes the credit.
2.  Future winners of all kinds of literary prizes would emerge from the scheme with a remembrance tag credited to the Buhari Government.
3. The scheme has the potential to become a Nigerian conquest platform marked by intellectually induced power house; a power house that could be harnessed for the growth of other sectors of society.
4. These future writers, by default, become life ambassadors of the Federal Government. These life-ambassadors do not put any commercial burden on the government. For example, most African writers like Ngugi Wa Thiongo, Kofi Awoonoor, Elechi Amadi, Ola Rotimi, Okot B’Tek, J. P. Clark, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Cyprain Ekwensi and so on cannot be detached from the African Writers Series. In fact, their umbilical cord is buried in the series. In this case, the cord becomes tied to Buhari’s Government, all through.
5. The inspiration towards reading habits shall be unquantifiable, proactive, impactful and widespread, through the proliferation of the books at every nooks and cranny of Nigeria. This phenomenon could be used to propagate some national policies of government.
6. The series has the potential for ethical revolution and appropriation through inherent values in the books from peer-to-peer. 
7. The series will enhance the profile of the APC Government in an unmatchable scale among Nigerians because it is cognitive, educational, intellectual, child-centred, community based and seemingly immortal.
8. The series has the potential to draw the attention of the entire secondary schools in Nigeria to the Government, in a positive way. Remember, this is a demographically, highly mobile group of the population.
9. Government can produce customized smart phones, ipads and other devices containing the series, apart from the physical book format.

The Module for Nigeria Teen Authors Series 

1. Publishing 10 teen authors per state will lead to talent discovery, focusing and development. A total of 370 books per year are excepted to be published which shall be alternated between story and poetry annually. Stories or poetry shall not be more than 60 pages.

CONCLUSION

Having had the experience in teen authorship scheme for over twenty years, and for being the pioneers in the country as well as having experiences as former officers of the Association of Nigerian Authors at both national and state levels, we believe that this series aimed at the creative Nigerian child will ultimately give an edge to the profile of the Buhari Government over similar initiatives of past administration. 

DRIVER-SCHEME TWO: THE NIGERIA BOOK HAWKER SCHEME

INTRODUCTION

The Nigeria Book Hawker Book-Reach-The-Neighbourhood programme. In an era when the populace has increasingly distanced itself from books, there is the need for the Buhari Administration to launch an aggressive and proactive campaign to take books to our communities through this very important initiatives – the Book Hawker Scheme.

Nigerians have advanced reasons such as, economic depreciation of the country and lack of purchasing power of citizens as being responsible for this but, this might not be necessarily so. Accessibility of citizens to beautiful reading texts is also a major cause of dwindling reading culture in our society, today. We have seen citizens’ recharge their cell phones with ease, spending a minimum of two thousand naira in a month for a low-income earner but have failed to buy books of even three hundred naira for their children as supplementary readers in a month. They buy these recharge cards often because it is in their neighbourhoods and couldn’t buy books for their children because they haven’t seen the books around them. Therefore, availability of books in the neighbourhood could increase the chances of citizens reading once again. More so, the books will be sold at subsidized rates.

SCOPE 

The Nigeria Book Hawker Scheme is a strategy of taking books to the neighbourhoods for parents to buy for their children through branded tricycles and other vehicles, thereby taking off the burden of deciding to go to the bookshop, which is very unlikely, today. This shall be a project of Buhari’s Government based in towns, semi-urban and villages in Nigeria. The method of taking the books to the neighbourhood for sale will be through branded tricycles bearing NIGERIAN BOOKHAWKER or any other name approved by the government. 

OBJECTIVES

1. To provide books at affordable prices.
2. To make books accessible to children and the members of the entire community.
3. To halt the increasing lack of interest in reading of books.
4. To provide platform for book development at community level.
5. To promote critical thinking at community levels.
6. To sharpen the quality of opinion, provoke curiosity of the child while promoting greater understanding of his/her immediate environment.
7. To help children begin to develop critical thinking faculties which will promote responsible adulthood as they grow.
8. To provide alternative entertainment and recreational materials. 
9. To take the child away from social vices prevalent in the society today.
10. To provide employment opportunities for citizens.

MODE OF OPERATION

There shall be an established organisation for the Nigerian Book Hawker which will be responsible for the implementation of the scheme. 

IMPACT ON GOVERNMENT

One of the cardinal objectives of the Buhari Administration is to create employment for the poor. The Nigeria Book Hawker Scheme, by its operational mode requires staff, branded pick-up trucks, drivers, tricycle and riders, book sellers, cleaners, book kiosks and drivers for the delivery vans. All of these would require manpower and as the number of sale-points increase, so will the number of employment opportunities;

1. Women and youth in the community, by accessing good reading materials would have acquired knowledge and skills that will reduce their vulnerability to poverty, social ills and increase their capacities in self-development;
2. Through book hawker, which is essentially a cognitive and intellectual scheme, youth, women and children in our communities will have access points for self-actualization through their encounters and experiences in the texts they are reading. Note that, these documented experiences are development experiences of greater societies that can be replicated here;
3. A reading public is a cognitively developed society that triggers the flourishing of creativity. Creativity triggers innovativeness; innovations bring about inventions and development. This self-initiated development process will lead to access to quality social and economic infrastructure; and
4. The introduction of the Book Hawker into the programme of Buhari’s Administration nationwide would be an uncommon and proactive measure towards combating the menace of illiteracy and the dwindling reading culture, especially amongst youth in the country. 

CONCLUSION

Government should launch the project to create awareness and publicity for it. The launch should be done by President Muhammadu Buhari in a remote corner of Abuja metropolis, where the majority are poor. It should be noted that Book Hawker is largely a programme for the low economic earner in the society, yet, it is a programme for all who wish to patronize it.

DRIVER-SCHEME THREE: NIGERIA NEIGHBOURHOOD LIBRARY SCHEME

Introduction

This scheme is to be supervised by the National Library through her representatives under the Nigeria National Book Development Plan. The Neighborhood Library Scheme is not a bogus outfit but a mini-structure scheme situated in the neighbourhood. Its principal feature is that it is established by the youths of a ward, street or neighbourhood, primarily to accommodate story books and other reading materials for the immediate benefit of the children of that neighbourhood. Each neighbourhood library will have its own characteristics which blends with the features of the environment where it is situated. These features may include economic, social and educational status of the parents’ dominant in the area. It is also a self-help activity where parents of participating youths or children agree to contribute a book or any reading material to it on monthly basis upon which each member-child must read within a specified period. Security, maintenance and administration of the Library will be the sole responsibility of the youths establishing it.

Objectives

1. To take book closer to the children in the face of decreasing attention.
2. To give functional meaning to efforts in promoting reading culture in the community,
3. To facilitate the imbibe friendships with books at community levels.
4. To teach self-help and encourage charity in the field of knowledge acquisition.
5. To induce, through reading, quality thoughts and critical consciousness in children of a community towards a knowledge-driven society.
6. To provide a common platform for the children of the same community to unite, think, act and socialize, towards positive growth and functionality in the society.
7. To re-direct the minds of community youth towards personalized studies and literacy that will enhance academic engagements in schools.
8. To help trigger the quest for imaginative excursions that may lead to outstanding scientific or artistic feats at a young age.
9. To give meaning and value to National Teen Authorship Scheme, Nigerian Book Hawker and National Publishing Scheme.

Operation

Take a list of not more than fifty houses, discuss the scheme with the parents, secure their willingness to participate in the establishment of the library. Get one or more of the parents to donate a room/building for the scheme (the property still remains his and can ask for it later with a five-month notice). Fix the place with wall shelves, get a register/youths in those houses to participate as members, who will use the library. Select or let them elect leaders for the scheme and how they will operate it. Let each of these fifty houses commence donating a book to the library each month. Design reading methods and competitions where each youth on subscription will have to read all the books within a specified period. They should design penalty for failure to read. 

Rules and Exceptions 

• Participation is voluntary
• Members must fill a form indicating their willingness to participate. Thereafter, all rules designed by the library becomes binding on the applicant. Parents must also sign the form as approval given to their wards to participate.
• Members cannot be deregistered but can opt out on their own. However, books donated cannot be taken away.
• A member can donate more than one book in a month.
• All members have equal authority to access books donated to the library. A donated book loses ownership.
• Each member must read a minimum of three books in a month, a maximum of ten days per book. Unfinished books must be returned on deadline.
• Books damaged by any member must be replaced with a fresh one
• There shall be only two leaders (a head and his assistant) who will run the library on an agreed period. Leaders must emerge through election.
• It is the responsibility of the leaders to keep the library in good shape. Operational hours should be by rotation among the leaders. All services must be rendered in charity (parents are to help leaders facilitate such services).
• A register must be kept to indicate who is in possession of what book, when it was collected and when to return it, and if returned. No book must change hands without being returned first for documentation or record keeping. 

Benefits 

The benefits are to the self, family/community and the society.

1. The reading child stands the chance of being tamed in the face of degeneration of the society.
2. Brings up a broadminded individual whose speech will be based on informed opinion.
3. Increased output in academic programmes of the child.
4. Proliferation of thinkers and productive persons in the society and by extension increase in development.
5. Discovery of future inventors

Conclusion

The essence of the Neighbourhood Library Scheme is to ensure the retention of books in our neighbourhoods in consolidating and preserving the National Teen Authorship Scheme, Nigerian Book Hawker and the National Publishing Scheme. Without books being retained in neighbourhoods and homes, the objectives and values of other driver-schemes of the Nigeria National Book Development Plan will be reduced and limited.

DRIVER-SCHEME FOUR: NIGERIA PUBLISHING SCHEME

A few banks shall be chosen to provide credit for regular Nigerian writers to draw from and publish their books through the registered publishers of the scheme in the country. The Nigeria Book Development Agency or the Presidential Committee on Book Development shall register indigenous publishing houses that are based in Nigeria with a history of publishing to be the sole drawers of the fund to be provided by the Federal Government for book development. Only fifty (50) publishers are to be involved in the pilot scheme. The fund shall be self-sustaining and has the capacity to multiply.

Similarly, there shall be a set of registered printing press outfits, indigenous and resident in Nigeria to publish the books. These printing outfits shall also have a pool in the registered banks to draw credit for the upgrade of their machinery and also to enhance quality production.

STATES IN NIGERIA

All the state in Nigeria will be part of the proposed projects. The states are Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, FCT, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nassarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara and the FCT. 

Also, there are 774 Local Government Areas in Nigeria.

ECONOMIC GAINS AND EMPLOYABILITY POTENTIALS OF THE NIGERIA NATIONAL BOOK DEVELOPMENT PLAN

The Buhari Administration shall set up a (Presidential Committee on Nigeria National Book Development Plan) or Nigeria Book Development Agency. There shall be branches in all the states of the federation. There shall be chapters in all the Local Government Areas of the federation. Please note that each branch and chapter is an integration of the following offices, whether at federal, state or local government levels:

1. Teen Authors Mentoring Centre;
2. Bookshop for Book Hawker;
3. Neighbourhood Library Scheme; and
4. Office for the National Publishing Scheme

Construction of the office complexes for the Nigeria National Book Development Centres in Federal, States and Local Government Areas offers variety of job opportunities for Nigerians in the construction industry.

NATIONAL TEEN AUTHORSHIP SCHEME

1. The grant of 1000 copies of published books to a teen author which they can sell on their own or launch in their communities to earn money, which will support their education and enhance their economic base. 
2. The published teen authors can sell their books through the Nigerian Book Hawker Scheme.
3. Teen authors will save money from sales and launchings to publish their future books, continuously. A savings scheme will be developed for published authors with registered banks.
4. Books by Nigerian teen authors will make their ways to Nigerian Neighbourhoods Libraries and homes across Nigeria.
5. The teen authors become regular authors in time ahead, upon which they can access National Publishing Scheme.
6. It will not only be a circle of book development culture but with integrated value chain for the country which will make Nigeria unbeatable in the world with the potential to escalate general development of the country.

NIGERIAN BOOK HAWKER SCHEME

1. There shall be drivers for branded Pick-up trucks, specially constructed for the scheme by Innonson Motors. There shall be riders for the reconstructed branded tricycles. There shall be riders for the reconstructed branded motorcycles too. These vehicles and tricycles are to be deployed to cities, urban, semi-urban towns, villages and wards in Nigeria. The drivers are to be the sellers, except in the case of the branded Pick-up trucks that will have a salesman.
2. There shall be Bookshops and Mini-bookshops in all the state capitals, cities, towns and Local Government headquarters in Nigeria. All these would be manned by variety of staff. 
3. The scheme has the capacity to generate income from teen authors and regular authors through sales of their books and other varieties of reading materials from around the world at the Book Hawker’s shops, Kiosks and vehicles for hawking the books across Nigeria will be constructed. 
4. The purchase, reconstruction of Pick-up trucks, tricycles, motor cycles and book kiosks are of economic values to the indigenous automobile manufacturers. 

NATIONAL PUBLISHING SCHEME FOR REGULAR AUTHORS

This is a business scheme for established writers resident in the country. 

1. The Federal Government will set aside a certain sum of money at the Bank of Industry where writers could access loans at a subsidised rate to publish their works and payback what was taken in three years. 
2. All books to be published must be vetted to ascertained the existence of the manuscript by the Nigeria Book Development Agency or the Presidential Committee on Book Development before disbursement. 
3. The mode of loans shall be: 1st book – N1m; 2nd book – N1.5m; 3rd book – N2m. After the 3rd book, there shall be no more loans to a writer who has accessed the three tiers of loans.
4. Annually, the Federal Government will build up the reserves to the initial capital to increase the number of writers accessing the facility.
5. Published writers under the scheme shall enjoy the services of other driver-schemes of the Nigeria National Book Development Plan.

GENERAL CONCLUSSION AND STARTING POINT

If this plan pleases the Federal Government, we have a team of implementers. The PLAN will naturally be driven by the Federal Government of Nigeria across all the States and Local Government Areas of Nigeria but headed by the designers.

The designers are Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation, Northern Writers Forum, and Polarshere Media Limited, who are to be the primary implementers along with the Federal Government.

The Federal Government will establish a committee that will design the implementation strategy comprising the heads of the organisations above, the Senator representing Niger East Senatorial District and other nominees of the Federal Government to achieve this, including the take-off cost, the schedules and timelines.

THE DESIGNERS OF THE NIGERIA BOOK DEVELOPMENT PLAN

BM Dzukogi (Founder/President)

Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation

bmdzukogi@gmail.com

Makama Shekwo’aga (Publisher)

Polarshpere Media/Books Limited

Isyaku Bala Ibrahim (President)

Northern Writers Forum

Thank you.