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Effective Reading Culture, Panacea For Social Vices -Stakeholders
One of the greatest disincentives to full maximisation of youth potentials in our society is the depletion of creative values through the abuse of the mind which is the fundamental resource base. The fragility and vulnerability of the mind therefore require conscious efforts to cultivate it for positive impact. Unfortunately, most youth today seem to have lost their minds to boredom which is evidently the disease of the age.
The consequences of this social misadventure are not farfetched; unbridled crime, craving for lawlessness, culpable indolence, brain drain among other social vices.
As part of measures of curbing the menace of boredom and other attendant vices, stakeholders have called for the rejuvenation of the faltering reading culture among youths.
A cross section of stakeholders who spoke with The Tide Metro in a random interview, traced the rot in our social systems to dearth of intellectual acumen on the path of youth.
Consequently, the stakeholders want the reading culture to be actively revitalised to make our youth productive and economically viable. Andy Akpotive, a Public affairs analyst, who spoke with The Tide Metro decried the decline in the reading culture in the society.
He pointed out that today’s youth have been carried away by some trappings that they neglect the key objective of developing themselves for the challenges of the future.
According to the analyst, the absence of a good reading culture has produced half baked graduates in the society who could barely write a good sentence or communicate effectively.
To avert the rot in our educational system, Akpotive, said debating and reading clubs should be fully reintroduced in schools.
He said, “greatness cannot be attained through loyalty to a political system, or cutting corners, greatness comes through diligence, and hard work, the secret of greatmen are buried in books, and only by reading and acquiring knowledge can one be truly great.”
Akpotive also called for the offering of special grants to writers as incentives to enable them develop good literary works. He regretted that although Nigeria was fecund with literary creativity in the world of arts, particularly in writing was yet to be fully developed.
On his part, the founder and Director of Garden City Library Project, Mr Austin Nwaeze, called for investment in library services to boost reading culture among youth. Nwaeze who runs a free library services with a huge collection of books, called for Public/Private sector partnership in the promotion of reading culture; ‘I’ve been at the forefront of promoting the reading culture for the past decades through my personal efforts, I am passionate about mobilising young minds to read because the future lies in their abilities to develop their minds, but my personal efforts has some limits, I want to use this opportunity to call government and key stakeholders, particularly the multinationals to complement our private efforts to revive the reading culture”.
Nwaeze, who is also Director of Project Read advocacy, said he had over the years floated a mobile children and adult libraries in Port Harcourt and its metropolis, and solicited for partnership to reach out to more people, particularly within the rural areas.
Dr Mbee Daniel, a lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, who spoke with The Tide Metro, called for the proper equipping of public libraries across the state with recreational facilities to create good ambience for people to read.
Daniel said the advent of the social media has to a large extent, impeded the art of writing and reading, as most people now resort to abbreviations, making them to barely write good essays.
The Nigeria Immigration Service has officially ended passport production at multiple centres, transitioning to a single, centralised system for the first time in 62 years.
Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, disclosed this yesterday while inspecting Nigeria’s new Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS Headquarters in Abuja.
He stated that since the establishment of NIS in 1963, Nigeria had never operated a central passport production centre, until now, marking a major reform milestone.
“The project is 100 per cent ready. Nigeria can now be more productive and efficient in delivering passport services,” Tunji-Ojo said.
He explained that old machines could only produce 250 to 300 passports daily, but the new system had a capacity of 4,500 to 5,000 passports every day.
“With this, NIS can now meet daily demands within just four to five hours of operation,” he added, describing it as a game-changer for passport processing in Nigeria.
“We promised two-week delivery, and we’re now pushing for one week.
“Automation and optimisation are crucial for keeping this promise to Nigerians,” the minister said.
He noted that centralisation, in line with global standards, would improve uniformity and enhance the overall integrity of Nigerian travel documents worldwide.
Tunji-Ojo described the development as a step toward bringing services closer to Nigerians while driving a culture of efficiency and total passport system reform.
He said the centralised production system aligned with President Bola Tinubu’s reform agenda, boosting NIS capacity and changing the narrative for better service delivery.
The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has disbursed N2.225 trillion as federation revenue for the month of August 2025, the highest ever allocation to the three tiers of government and other statutory recipients.
This marks the second consecutive month that FAAC disbursements have crossed the N2 trillion mark.
The revenue, shared at the August 2025 FAAC meeting in Abuja, was buoyed by increases in oil and gas royalty, value-added tax (VAT), and common external tariff (CET) levies, according to a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting.
Out of the N2.225 trillion total distributable revenue, FAAC said N1,478.593 trillion came from statutory revenue, N672.903 billion from VAT, N32.338 billion from the Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL), and N41.284 billion from Exchange Difference.
The communiqué revealed that gross federation revenue for the month stood at N3.635 trillion. From this amount, N124.839 billion was deducted as cost of collection, while N1,285.845 trillion was set aside for transfers, interventions, refunds, and savings.
From the statutory revenue of N1.478 trillion, the Federal Government received N684.462 billion, State Governments received N347.168 billion, and Local Government Councils received N267.652 billion. A further N179.311 billion (13 per cent of mineral revenue) went to oil-producing states as derivation revenue.
From the distributable VAT revenue of N672.903 billion, the Federal Government received N100.935 billion, the states received N336.452 billion, while the local governments got N235.516 billion.
Of the N32.338 billion shared from EMTL, the Federal Government received N4.851 billion, the States received N16.169 billion, and the Local Governments received N11.318 billion.
From the N41.284 billion exchange difference, the Federal Government received N19.799 billion, the states received N10.042 billion, and the local governments received N7.742 billion, while N3.701 billion (13 per cent of mineral revenue) was shared to the oil-producing states as derivation.
The Governing Council of Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa Polytechnic, Bori, has decried the inadequate power supply and poor state of infrastructural facilities and equipment at the institution.
The Council also appealed to the government, including Non-Governmental Organisations, agencies, as well as well-meaning Rivers people to intervene to restore and sustain the laudable gesture, dreams and aspirations of the founding fathers of the polytechnic.
The Chairman of the newly inaugurated Council, Professor Friday B. Sigalo, made this appeal during a tour of facilities at the Polytechnic, recently.
Accompanied by members of the team, Prof Sigalo emphasised the position of technology, technical and vocational education in sustainable development.
He noted that with the prospects on ground, and the programmes and activities undertaken in the polytechnic, there is no doubt that the institution would add values to the educational system in our society and foster the desired development, if the existing challenges are jointly tackled.
This was contained in a statement signed by Deputy Registrar, Public Relations, Kenpoly, Innocent Ogbonda-Nwanwu, and made available to The Tide in Port Harcourt.
The chairman who restated the intention of his team of technocrats to ensure that KenPoly enjoys desirable face-lift, said the Council would deliver on its core mandates, accordingly.
Earlier, the Rector, KenPoly Engr. Dr. Ledum S. Gwarah, commended the appointment of Professor Friday B. Sigalo as Chairman of the KenPoly Governing Council.
He described him and his team as seasoned technocrats and expressed confidence in their ability to succeed.
The Rector pledged the management’s support to the Council to ensure that KenPoly resumes its rightful place in the comity of polytechnics in the country.
Facilities visited by the Governing Council include KenPoly workshops, laboratories, skills acquisition centre, library, hostels and medical centre.
Chinedu Wosu
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