The Federal Government, some states, and private organisations in and outside Nigeria have expressed commitment to partner with the Book Swap Foundation to promote literacy among Nigerian children by imbibing the culture of reading.
The stakeholders made the commitment in Abuja at the launch of the Book Swap Foundation which is an initiative aimed at inspiring creativity, inspiring young minds and making available the literature on which to build the future of Nigeria.
Launching the programme, minister of Education, Adamu Adamu said his ministry would continue to support the Book Swap initiative from the beginning and as it progresses as it holds potential for the educational development of the country which is key to all aspects of national development.
Adamu, who was represented by an Assistant director of education support services, Mary Oludoni, Book Swap was important to the attainment of the educational goals of the country and international development partners, hence the ministry was tasked to see that the programme see the light of the day.
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“Book Swap, we have been talking about the SDGs goal 4. We distribute books at the basic and secondary levels. I want to tell you that not only on our tables in Nigeria that we can swap books, we can swap books with foreign countries that are ready to learn our various languages”, the minister said.
Executive secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), Hamid Bobboyi said they would partner with Book Swap Foundation to ensure that other stakeholders in the states have access to the books and in other activities that the commission’s support is needed.
Representative of Office of the senior special assistant to the president on Sustainable Development Goals, (OSSAP-SDGs), Echekwu Israel said the agency was in support of the initiative because it was line with the realisation of goal 4 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which have since metamorphosed to SDGs.
Also speaking, Kaduna State governor, Nasir el- Rufai represented by Salome Kennedy, director of academics in state ministry of education, said the state government would form a collaboration with the Foundation to see that its children make good use of the books and further the education of the state.
Founder of Book Swap, Olatunde Lawal-Solarin said the Foundation was born from the demise of his father last year and was chairman of Lambton Books over the last 50 years during which he collected creative works from Nigerian authors and creative industry.
