FROM ONITSHA MARKET LITERATURE TO GENERAL TRADE BOOK PUBLISHING IN NIGERIA

by
Innocent O. Okoro

Formerly, Senior Consultant Librarian, Saudi Arabian Oil Company, Saudi Arabia
Paper presented during the Biennial Conference of the African Studies Association of the U.K. on "What can we learn from Africa?" held at the University of Birmingham, 9th-12th September, 2002

Contents: INTRODUCTION - EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EASTERN NIGERIA - THE CITY OF ONITSHA - THE ORIGIN OF THE ONITSHA MARKET LITERATURE -
THE AUTHORS AND WHY THEY WROTE CHAPBOOKS - SPECIAL FEATURES AND SUCCESS OF THE ONITSHA MARKET LITERATURE - DEATH OF THE ONITSHA MARKET LITERATURE - THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD - CURRENT TRENDS IN GENERAL TRADE BOOK PUBLISHING - SOME FACTORS HELPING TRADE BOOK PUBLISHING - SOME PROBLEMS CONSIDERED - RECOMMENDATIONS -
WHAT BRITAIN CAN LEARN FROM THE BOOK BUSINESS IN NIGERIA - FOOTNOTES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

The first book in the Onitsha market literature series was published in 1947. This was quickly followed by other titles some of which were so slim that they numbered less than 20 pages each. In a relatively short time, these chapbooks and novelettes became popular in Eastern Nigeria especially among secondary school boys and girls and among thousands of traders in Onitsha market. From the Eastern Region the popularity spread to the Cameroons, Ghana and other West Africa countries.

The 5-year period, 1958 to 1962 may be described as the heyday when the total number of books published each year was near the 50 titles mark. The language used in the books was suitable for most of the people in the society because not many of them were educated to primary and secondary school levels. By the time the Biafran war ended in January 1970, the publication and selling of the Onitsha market pamphlets and chapbooks was dying a natural death.

The same period in history also marked the transition from writing novelettes with semi-literate population in mind to writing serious tradebooks, both fiction and non-fiction, for highly educated people. By general trade books we mean those books written for the general public, mainly the adult population, and published by a commercial publisher. Such books are written for the non-specialist reading public, such as biography, novels, literature, belles letters, etc. Incidentally, these are the kind of books which people usually buy for their intrinsic merits, and they read them for their own sake.

This paper will examine some existing conditions, both favourable or otherwise, for book development in Nigeria and also make some recommendations for future guidance. Finally, some points will be made to show how British academics, publishers and the reading public can learn something from what is currently going on in the book industry in Nigeria.

EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN EASTERN NIGERIA

Thomas B. Freeman of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society arrived at Badagry in Western Nigeria in 1842. The Church Missionary Society (CMS) also arrived in Badagry in 1845, and the Foreign Missionary Committee of the United Free Church of Scotland arrived in Calabar in 1846. The Roman Catholic Society of African Missionaries arrived in Lagos in 1867. By the year 1849, the CMS Yoruba mission had established four main mission stations at Badagry, Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan.(1) Most of the Christian Missionary Stations so far established in Nigeria were in towns and cities near the coast. For these missionaries, they moved out from stations along the seaside to nearby towns and villages in the hinterland.(2) The continuation of this inward movement had a commercial city on the River Niger as the main destination. That city was known as Onitsha.

Bishop Samuel, Ajayi Crowther, accompanied by some other African missionaries, visited Onitsha in 1857, and in that year, he made Onitsha the Headquarters of the Church Missionary Society, (CMS) mission in Eastern Nigeria. An African catechist, J.C. Taylor, was put ashore not only to start a mission but also to be in charge of the CMS mission at Onitsha.(3) Some years later, the Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) also chose Onitsha as their Headquarters and they started a new mission there in 1885, under Father Lutz. For the Church Missionary Society, the decision by the Roman Catholic Mission to build their headquarters at Onitsha was a violation of the policy of "Spheres of Operation" which the Anglicans not only introduced, but also worked hard to maintain.(4) The policy simply meant that once one European Christian Missionary Society had set up their headquarters in one particular town in Nigeria, no other missionaries coming after them should build their Head Office in the same town. In order to maintain the spheres of operation policy in Eastern Nigeria, the Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians agreed not to trespass on each other’s territory.(5)

Though the Anglicans were the first to arrive in Eastern Nigeria (1857) the Catholic missionaries who arrived 28 years after in 1885, soon overtook them in the level of activities, number of converts, and educational advancement. With Onitsha as the base, the Catholic missionaries sent Reverend Fathers to places north of Onitsha such as Igbariam, Aguleri, Nteje, Adazi and Awka. Another group was sent to places south of Onitsha, i.e. to the Igbo heartland, and to towns like Ihiala, Oguta, Orlu, Owerri, Okigwi and Aba. The gap between the arrival of the missionaries in Yorubaland (1842) and the Catholics in Igboland (1885) was 43 years. Thus it can be seen that the Yorubas of Western Nigeria were several years ahead of the Igbos of Eastern Nigeria in the level of educational development. At first, the Igbos did not embrace the western type of education wholeheartedly. As C.N.Ubah has shown, the Igbos had a lot of catching up to do in the educational field. He said, "Consequently, as the studies of Coleman and Abernethy have shown, one of the principal thrusts on the part of the Igbo in the early decades of the 20th Century was in the educational arena, in an attempt to catch up with the Yoruba and the Efik of Southern Nigeria who had had earlier contact with the new culture."(6)

For some towns and villages in Igboland, the first primary schools were still being built in the 1930s and 1940s. Many children who wanted to go to school could not do so either because their parents could not pay the school fees, or in some cases the school fees could be paid but the parents could not pay for the prescribed school books and the school uniform.

Colin Wise has explained that in Eastern Nigeria up to 1930, the primary school course lasted for 8 years, consisting of two infant classes and six standards, i.e. standards 1-6. Its work was centred on the standard six examination and most pupils hoped to stay at school long enough to take it. Thus the full primary course was regarded as a minimum education.(7)

There was a time in the early decades of the 20th century when people with minimum education (standard 6) secured employment as teachers, clerks in shops at Onitsha and office clerks in government departments. Over the years, people discovered that the standard 6 certificate was no longer enough to enable people secure jobs. A large number of those young people who could not go to school at all as well as those with the minimum educational qualifications found their ways to Onitsha either to trade or to work as apprentices to qualified carpenters, masons, tailors, builders and other technicians.

For the RCM and CMS missionaries, the building of schools was among their first task. In 1892, the Roman Catholic Mission opened some schools in Onitsha, and by 1906, there were 25 Roman Catholic schools in the Onitsha area. The CMS Niger Mission opened a Girls’ School at Onitsha in 1895. A Catechists’ class was began in Iyi Enu in 1900 which is 5 miles north of Onitsha.(8) The policy on Education document of the Eastern Nigerian government was published as a Sessional Paper No.6 of 1953. It showed that of the 1,200,000 children in the 6-14 age group in the region, only 515,158 were in the school by 1951, i.e. 43%.(9) If only 43 percent of the children were at school in 1951, one can imagine how low the percentage would be in the 1930s and 1940s. This will help to illustrate the level of education of Eastern Nigeria at the time when the Onitsha Market Literature came into existence in 1947.

THE CITY OF ONITSHA

Onitsha is a large Nigerian City situated on the eastern side of the River Niger. It is an important commercial, educational, religious and cultural centre in Igboland. The 1991 census gave the population of Onitsha as 336,000.(10) By 2002 the population of Onitsha will be near the 450,000 mark. Onitsha has the reputation of having the largest market in West Africa. In the 19th Century Onitsha people participated as middlemen in the palm oil and palm kernel trade. Onitsha people became rich and powerful by selling products from the interior to the Europeans. As a result of this, Europeans built a factory at Onitsha in 1857.(11) The strategic position of the town attracted people from different parts of Nigeria into it, but by far a greater proportion of the inhabitants remained, and still remains Igbos from both sides of the River Niger.(12) As a collecting and distribution centre in the 20th century, its vast hinterland included the Igbo trading diaspora and the dense population of the former Eastern Region and the Cameroons. Tom Forrest has explained that for many Igbo traders, Onitsha functioned and still continues to act as a strategic wholesale centre within a much broader trading diaspora.(13)

The role of Onitsha as an educational centre has already been shown above. Here, it is necessary to add that for over 80 years, Onitsha has been regarded as an educational city which has been attracting students from all parts of Nigeria. It is generally believed that Onitsha was, and still is a place of day schools and night schools; mission schools and private schools; grammar schools and commercial schools; of one-room academies, and backyard colleges. It was a self-confident place where a man would not be deterred even by insufficient education from aspiring to improve his position in life.(14) The Roman Catholic mission opened Christ the King College for boys in 1934.

Onitsha town is also a cultural centre of Igboland. The city is distinguished by its sense of social superiority and its role as the modern cultural centre among the Northern Igbo following the development of export trade.(15) Perhaps the greatest feature which identifies the cultural patterns of Onitsha is the "individuality" of the person. The Onitsha man believes in himself as an individual human being who is able and also has the capacity to realise whatever his personal potentialities might be. It has been said that this belief in self-realization is a doctrine which even affects other non-Onitsha Igbos who come from all parts of Igboland to live in Onitsha. Every Onitsha man believes that there are several avenues of self-realization open to every Onitsha man.(16)

ORIGIN OF ONITSHA MARKET LITERATURE

It is not known whether any individual or group of people ever came together, sat down, planned and worked out the details of what they wanted to do in advance before they started publishing and selling pamphlets in the Onitsha market literature series to the public. However, what is known is that, according to Emmanuel Obiechina, the first pamphlets in the series were published in 1947.(17) It could be said that the first publications in the Onitsha market literature were written by Cyprian Ekwensi, who later became a famous Nigerian novelist. The titles of the pamphlets written by Ekwensi were "When love whispers" and a collection of Igbo folktales called "Ikolo the wrestler and other Igbo tales". All these were published in 1947. Another factor which spurred people on to writing the chapbooks was the end of the Second world war. The Nigerian soldiers who fought in India and the Far East, came back with copies of Indian and Victorian drugstore pulp magazines which served as models for the pamphlet literature.(18)

THE AUTHORS AND WHY THEY WROTE CHAPBOOKS

It has been said above that a good number of young people with the minimum educational qualification of standard six found their ways to Onitsha either to trade or to work as apprentices in various trades and professions. It was this group of new literates, school leavers, school teachers, low-level clerks, artisans, provincial correspondents of daily newspapers who now devoted their time to writing the Onitsha market pamphlets. Most of the authors of the Onitsha chapbooks were amateurs rather than professionals. Another group of people who wrote the Onitsha market pamphlets were local printing press owners, booksellers, journalists, railwaymen, traders, and farmers. Some of the pamphlets were written by grammar school boys who wrote under pseudo names so that their school authorities would not identify and then punish them.

Most of the pamphlet authors maintained that financial gain was not their reason for writing the pamphlets. The authors already had full-time employment from which they earned their living and they merely took up writing as part-time and for the joy of it. Consequently, even if they earned little money from their writing, that was regarded as a supplementary family income. A good number of the authors wrote a preface to the finished work in which they gave biographical details of their lives. Usually such a preface gave the details as to how and why the authors came to be personally involved in pamphlet writing.

One of the authors, Cletus Nwosu, in a preface to his book, by the title of Miss Cordelia in the Romance of Destiny, gave the reasons why he decided to become an author, the reasons were:

1.To write a book for the interest and amusement of all Nigerian students.

2. To write a book for the purpose of dedicating it(the book) to his boyhood friend and companion, one Mr. Lawrence Chikwendu, and

3. To add his name to the list of Nigerian authors.(19)

Though adding one’s name to the list of Nigerian authors was given as the third reason for writing, there is no doubt that it was the primary objective of the pamphlet authors. As Obiechina has explained, unlike the printer-publishers, the satisfaction of being seen in print is often adequate compensation to the pamphlet authors.(20)

SPECIAL FEATURES AND SUCCESS OF ONITSHA MARKET LITERATURE

Was the popular pamphleteering in Nigeria a success or a failure? The obvious answer is that it was a big success. There are several factors which contributed to the success of the Onitsha market literature. In 1946, the colonial government of Nigeria sold their used printing presses and shortly after, the local market places were flooded with romantic novelettes and chapbooks.(21) Many traders in Onitsha bought these discarded machines. Cheap production costs also made it possible for large print runs to be produced. The fact that the authors had declared that their main concern was not to make money from their writing meant that the publishers had a free hand to fix cheap prices for the pamphlets. Many titles were sold for two shillings, which is equivalent to the present 10p e.g. Our modern ladies characters towards boys by Highbred Maxwell.(22)

The strategic position of the city of Onitsha on the eastern bank of the River Niger also contributed to the success of the market literature. Onitsha is easily accessible from all parts of Nigeria and people come from all parts of the Federation and also from other countries in West Africa either to buy or sell their commodities at Onitsha. The pamphlets were sold in various bookshops in Onitsha as well as in the open markets. Roadside hawkers as well as peripatetic booksellers helped to sell thousands of copies of the pamphlets. Travellers passing through Onitsha boasted of buying copies of the cheap chapbooks to show to their relatives and friends at home. Onitsha town has a large home-based market and many educational institutions. There are thousands of traders in the Onitsha market and also thousands of grammar school boys and girls in Onitsha who bought copies of the pamphlets.

The publication and distribution of the pamphlets coincided with the period when many people were becoming educated in Eastern Nigeria. Even the Onitsha traders who were not educated, decided to go to the night schools to learn how to read and write. By so doing, they were able to read the stories by themselves. Some illiterate traders who bought the pamphlets but decided not to go to the night schools, availed themselves of the services of the Onitsha public scribes. These were educated people who had it as their full-time job to read or write letters as well as read stories from books to illiterates and charge them for the service.

There were still other factors which helped to the success of the market literature. By the time the first set of pamphlets were published in 1947, public libraries did not exist in Eastern Nigeria. The market booksellers concentrated their efforts in selling prescribed school textbooks and not popular fiction and general trade books. The people had nowhere to go when they wanted to read some light materials. This meant that for many years, Nigerians were suffering from book hunger. Consequently, when the Onitsha market pamphlets were issued, the people were happy and the cheapness of the retail price enabled them to buy the copies in large numbers.

As already stated, the 5-year period, 1958 to 1962 may be described as the heyday of the Onitsha market literature pamphlets. During that period, one could easily go to a bookshop and select up to 200 titles. The popularity of the chapbooks quickly spread from Onitsha to Enugu, Aba, Owerri, Port Harcourt, Calabar and other cities and towns in Eastern Nigeria. From the East, it spread to the West, Northern Nigeria and to Lagos, to Cameroons, Ghana and other countries in West Africa. As Onitsha could no longer cope with the popular demand, the printing and production were now contracted to companies based in Aba, Port Harcourt, Yaba in Lagos, Enugu, Owerri, Kafanchan, Uzuakoli, Ovim, Orlu, Sapele, Warri, Agbani and Okigwi. The average Onitsha market pamphlet sold 3000-4000 copies per title. There were two titles which sold over 30,000 copies each. (23)

Source: Obiechina, Emmanuel. Literature for the masses: an analytical study of popular pamphleteering in Nigeria, published in Enugu Nigeria, by Nwankwo-Ifejika, 1971. P.4.

There were two other factors which helped the Onitsha market pamphlets to succeed as a literary and business enterprise. These were the subject matters treated by the authors and the simple language they used in expressing their ideas.

As Emmanuel Obiechina has shown, the Onitsha market pamphlets are par excellence literature for the masses. They are stories about common people, by members of the same class, but for everyone’s enjoyment. The pamphlet authors themselves had a fair idea of the kind of audience for which they produced.(24) The pamphlets dealt with the concrete realities of life and with subjects which were relevant to the daily life activities of the people. After reading the pamphlets, some readers even felt that the authors had them in mind when writing because they touched on events which had either happened to them personally or to their close relatives and friends.

To Obiechina, the pamphlet authors reproduced in graphic details, the problems and details of events happening not only to Igbo people but also to other Nigerians, on daily basis. "He said, inter alia … the authors of the pamphlets dealt with the problems and experiences of ordinary men and women and their efforts to cope with such matters as love and marriage, life in the town and especially how to earn and save money…. For the first time, written literature became a medium for clarifying the issues of everyday life and experience, for seeking and proffering answers to social problems and for celebrating the realities of the changes sweeping over the land."(25)

Both the style and plot were simple and straightforward. Bearing in mind that the pamphlets were being written mainly for new literates and semi-literate people, the authors were careful to choose and use simple words which their readers could understand and enjoy. There was always a tacit understanding between the author and the publisher about what the popular taste would be. At all times, the interest of the popular audience was paramount. Any sentence which deviated from the norm was either, cancelled or recast. Sometimes when the author drifted away from the direct line of the popular taste, he would be corrected immediately by the publisher. The authors of the pamphlets tried to partake of the humour, the informality and the openness of life in the Onitsha market. Above all, they were anxious to amuse their readers and make them laugh. Because people enjoyed reading the pamphlets, they were prepared to pay so as to own and take several titles to their homes.(26)

DEATH OF THE ONITSHA MARKET LITERATURE

Despite the popularity which the Onitsha market literature enjoyed for nearly a generation, by the year 1975, that literary phenomenon had ceased to exist. To many people, especially those who enjoyed comfortable living as a result of this special book trade, the demise came rather too quickly and too unexpectedly. Why was this the case? One obvious answer is that the Biafran war of July 1967 to January 1970 had abruptly halted the progress of the pamphlet business.

While Enugu was the Regional and administrative capital, Onitsha was the commercial, industrial and educational centre of the Eastern Region of Nigeria. To many people in Nigeria, Onitsha was at the centre of most activities in the East. It was not surprising therefore that when the federal forces entered Onitsha during the war, they made sure that they burnt the market down, destroyed most of the infrastructure in Onitsha; destroyed the printing machines and any equipment they could lay their hands on and took away whatever they could carry in their vans.

At the end of the war, when people came back to Onitsha, what they saw was a city which had been systematically destroyed. It was like a ghost town. There was little or nothing left for them to use in starting a new life. This state of affairs led to frustration, hopelessness and despair. People even turned round and started blaming their fellow Onitsha inhabitants for being the cause of their woes. The spirit of comradeship, for which the inhabitants of Onitsha were known, had gone. People did not trust one another any more. Rather they started being cagey and secretive. The informality and the openness of life in the Onitsha market had gone. People were no longer prepared to tell their fellow traders the truth.

However, there were people who loved the Onitsha market literature so much that they were determined to reactivate their business. Before long, they discovered that they were facing many odds. Their printing presses and other production equipment had either been stolen or destroyed beyond repair. Buying new machines would obviously cost them more money. Moreover, the resumption of the production of new pamphlets was capital-intensive. The cover price for each new title produced would be increased considerably. Some of the well-known pamphlet authors had disappeared from Onitsha, and some even lost their lives. Obiechina stated clearly that one of the famous pamphlet authors, Chike Okonyia, the author of Tragic, Niger Tales was killed during the war.(27)

The whole fabric of society and the special characteristics which distinguished Onitsha from other cities in Igboland had gone. Thousands of people decided to leave Onitsha for good and set up new lines of business in other cities like Enugu, Aba and Port Harcourt. Before the war, some traders were prepared to buy every new pamphlet title published. After the war, the same traders decided not to purchase the publications any more, partly because they had no money, and partly because the new retail prices were too high for them.

Few years after the war, even those who thrived on the pamphleteering business had no alternative than to give up the trade. Consequently, it can be said that by the year 1975, the Onitsha market literature had ceased to exist. The people of Eastern Nigeria had to look elsewhere for their reading materials. The disappearance of this literary genre was a loss not only to the Igbos and to Eastern Nigerians but also to the whole of Nigeria and to some West Africans. The Biafran war had changed the philosophy of life of the Igbo people of Nigeria.

THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD

Between 1950 and 1970, a period of 20 years, some classic novels written by Nigerian authors were published. The same period coincided with the time when the Onitsha market literature was in vogue from 1947 to 1975. Some of these novels were The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuoba (1952); People of the City, by Cyprian Ekwensi (1954); Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe (1958), and One Man One Wife by Timothy Aluko (1959).

These represent what Oyekan Owomoyela called the First Wave Writers of West Africa.(28) Their works also represent a transitional period from the novelettes and chapbooks of the Onitsha market literature, to serious fiction written by intellectual authors. One Nigerian novelist who may be said to have spearheaded the transition was C.O.D. Ekwensi. He wrote for the Onitsha market literature as well as serious novels for the more sophisticated readers. As Obiechina has rightly observed, both the pamphlet writers and the intellectual West African writers used their writing as media to provide insights into the contemporary West African life. The pamphlet writers concerned themselves with surface appearances, while the intellectual writers tried to dig deep into underlying causes and explanations.(29)

CURRENT TRENDS IN GENERAL TRADE BOOK PUBLISHING

We have already seen how serious fiction was being published almost side by side with the pamphlets of the Onitsha market literature. Those novels were written by first wave intellectual writers from Nigeria. During the Second wave, we had Wole Soyinka’s novel The Interpreters (1965) and Gabriel Okara’s novel, The Voice (1964). It was during the Second Wave that Chinua Achebe published his two next novels – No Longer at ease (1960) and Man of the People, (1966). Elechi Amadis book, The Concubine, was published in 1966. Achebe’s Man of the People dealt with corruption, and ended with violence and a coup. It was during this Second Wave that some of the novels of the pioneer Igbo women writers were published. The first was EFURU, by flora Nwapa (1966), and Idu (1969). The other female novelist, Buchi Emecheta, published her autobiographical novels, In the Ditch (1972) and Second Class Citizen, (1974).

The writers of the Third Wave were young people writing for an African audience and not for the Euro-Americans as was the case with the first Wave authors. These new Third Wave authors sought not only to entertain like the Onitsha chapbooks, but also to edify and instruct, as well as to forge a common cause with ordinary people.(30) Some of the novels of the Third Wave are One is Enough, by Flora Nwapa (1981); Kalu Okpi’s The Smugglers (1978) and On the Road (1980).

If the writing and publishing of novels was a fairly new undertaking by Nigerians, the writing of non-fiction by Nigerians has been going on for nearly hundred years. Keribo’s History of the Yoruba People was published in Abeokuta in 1906. A classic book, the History of the Yorubas, by Samuel Johnson, was first published by the C.M.S. Bookshop in Lagos in 1921 and recently reprinted in 1997.(31) The trial of Awolowo by Lateef Jakande, was published by John West Publications in 1966. Health Education for the Community by Dr. F. Adi which won the Noma Award for publishing in Africa in 1981, was published by Nwamife Publishers of Enugu in 1981.(32)

In the years 1983 and 1984, there was an acute shortage of books of all descriptions – educational books, children’s books, reference books and general trade books in Nigeria. The federal and state governments were worried about this state of affairs. As a result of this, Nigerian newspapers started criticising educated Nigerians, accusing them of laziness. University professors and other academics were particularly singled out for vilification. In April 1984, the Daily Times of Nigeria published a long leader article under the title of Shortage of Books amid Surfeit of Dons.

"It is time the academics in our numerous universities cut down on their campus politicking and petty squabbling to devote their intellectual energies to fruitful academic yields with special attention to catering for the country’s demands for research and book-writing."(33)

Professor O. Adamolekun of Ife University gave a reply on behalf of the university dons. He explained that hundreds of manuscripts had been accepted for publication some years ago, but because of limited printing facilities the books could not be produced in Nigeria.

The result of this was that hundreds of Nigerians who took up this matter as a personal and national challenge went into book publishing and the book trade in a big way. Both the academics and other educated Nigerians in other walks of life started taking the writing of books very seriously. Within a relatively short time, there was a diversification into various fields of human endeavour. The present trend today is that Nigerians are now writing books covering hundreds of subject areas such as politics; music’ drama; the Economy; education; health services, biographies; literary criticism; history; folklore and proverbs; law; engineering; women affairs; company history; chieftaincy affairs; cookery; public finance; short stories; information technology; development issues; colonialism; culture; tradition, etc. Politicians and especially company executives in Nigeria are now very keen to see their memoirs and biographies published.

Some details are given below of selected samples of what have been published in recent years.

FIG. No. 2: Details of some recently published books in selected subject areas.

SOME FACTORS HELPING TRADE BOOK PUBLISHING

Despite any problems that the book industry may have in Nigeria, there are some existing conditions and factors which help book development in Nigeria. These are treated briefly under some sub-headings.

THE BIAFRAN WAR: The war was the inspiration which urged many people to write books. Chidi Amuta said… it can safely be said that in the growing body of Nigerian national literature, works directly based on, or indirectly deriving from the war experience constitute the largest number of literary products on any aspect of Nigerian history to date.(34)

NIGERIANS OF THE DIASPORA: Thousands of Nigerians who have happily settled in Britain, USA and Continental Europe, are no longer in a hurry to go home. Buchi Emecheta has written more than 10 novels. Ben Okri’s novel, the Famished Road, won the BOOKER PRIZE for fiction in 1991.

NATIONAL BOOK CRISIS 1983-1984: As already shown above, the national book crisis of 1983 and 1984 spurred on many Nigerians to start writing and publishing books.

AFRICAN BOOKS COLLECTIVE: The African Books collective was started in 1989, and it is a major self-help initiative by a group of African publishers to promote their books in Europe, North America and in other Commonwealth countries outside Africa. They have their Headquarters at Oxford, and through them, a good number of books published in Africa can now be purchased by people in Europe, USA, etc without any problem.

LAUNCHING OF NEW BOOKS: Before the Biafran war, 1967 to 1970, there was nothing like book launching in Nigeria. Since the war ended, the launching of new books has come into vogue. Some Nigerians now write books simply because they want their books to be launched. To such people, that is a great achievement in life.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ENCOURAGEMENT: Because of foreign exchange regulation and the use of FORM "M" many publishers and booksellers were finding it difficult to continue in business by 1983 and 1984. Now the use of form M has been abolished, and foreign exchange regulations have been relaxed.

SOME PROBLEMS CONSIDERED

The book trade in Nigeria has got some problems to face. Some of these are:

SCARCITY OF BOOKS: With a population of over 115,000,000 people, what is being published in Nigeria is not enough to cope with the demands. Prescribed school and university books as well as general trade books are not easy to find.

POOR EDITORIAL WORK: Both copy editing and thorough editorial work is lacking in some books produced in Nigeria. The publishing houses are small, and in some cases, there is only one man who works as the editor, publisher, sales manager, etc.

HIGH PRICES OF BOOKS: There is a tendency to inflate the prices of books, e.g. a slim book of less than 100 pages may be priced at two thousand naira. The high price does not bear any relationship with the literary value or intrinsic merit of the book.

BOOK PIRACY: Once a book is popular or is well known, it becomes a target for book pirates.

THE RICH AVOID THE BOOK TRADE: So far, very rich Nigerians who will be able to invest large sums of money on heavy printing machines and provide other infrastructural facilities have not gone into the publishing business in Nigeria.

BANKS AND THE NIGERIAN BOOK TRADE:Bank managers in Nigeria are reluctant to lend money to publishers and booksellers. The reason for this is that they believe that the book industry is a slow-moving business. They do not make large sums of money in a relatively short time.

LACK OF TRAININIG FACILITIES: There are not many colleges or universities in Nigeria where those interested can undertake degree courses on how to be a publisher or a bookseller. People work in the industry but without any formal training for the job.

LACK OF REVIEW JOURNALS: In the past, attempts were made to start book review journals such as the Booksellers Monthly, The Book Nigeria and the Pan African Book World. Each of them was published two or three times and then ceased publication. Nigerians do not have means of knowing what is being published. What is published in the newspapers is all they rely on.

NO BOOKTRADE LISTS: There is no regular booktrade list like we have the J.Whitaker’s Weekly Bookseller in Britain. There is a need for telling people in the trade what is being published.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• The Nigerian Book Development Council should be completely overhauled so that a new national body will be appointed with a new Director-General. The Federal government should back such a new body up with a new law so that it will have a firm, legal stand.
• A national readership survey should be conducted to find out what people read. For those who do not read, the survey should find out why they do not read.There should be a mechanism for fixing the price of books, and that net price, once it is fixed, should be printed on the book itself.
• The government should do something to bring down the present high price of books.

WHAT BRITAIN CAN LEARN FROM THE BOOK BUSINESS IN NIGERIA

I believe that there are some lessons which Britain can learn from Nigeria with regards to publishing and bookselling. These are:

From time to time, the relationship between university dons and the media is strained as was the case in Nigeria in 1983 and 1984. Despite the harsh words which the Daily Times used against Nigerian academics, Prof. O.Adamolekun behaved like a matured man and handled the matter in such a diplomatic way that the matter was settled amicably. Despite the increased number of books being written and published in Nigeria, the country still suffers from book hunger. British publishers as well as booksellers can help the situation by sending more books to Nigeria.

In his book, "Teaching a child to read", W.E.C. Gillham said " and I think that the extent of illiteracy in this country (Britain) is only gradually being recognised."(35) The fact of the matter is that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people in Britain today who cannot read or write. Britain can start a policy of publishing chapbooks and novelettes in simple language which these people can understand like Nigerians did under the Onitsha Market Literature system.

In Britain, the tendency is to try to make the booksellers not sell the books below the net book price. In Nigeria there is a taskforce to ensure that the bookseller does not sell the book to the public above the recommended price. Nigerian booksellers still sell books above the price.

FOOTNOTES & BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1) Lewis, L.J. Society, Schools and Progress in Nigeria. Oxford. Pergamon Press, 1965. p.24

(2) Holmes, Brian, ed.Educational policy and the mission schools. Case studies from the British Empire. London. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967. p.38.

(3) Moorhouse, Geoffrey The missionaries. London. Eyre Methuen. 1973. p.87

(4) Cowan, Gray, L. et al editors Education and nation building in Africa. London. Pall Mall Press, 1965. p.99.

(5) Holmes, B. op.cit. p.38

(6) Ubah, C.N. Western education in Africa: the Igbo experience, 1900-1960. Comparative Education Review, vol. 24, No.3.1980. P.372.

(7) Wise, Colin, G. A history of education in British West Africa. London. Longman, Green & Co. 1956. p.95.

(8) Hilliard, F.H. A short history of education in British West Africa. London. Nelson Educational Books. 1957. P.126.

(9) Hilliard, F.H. Op. Cit. p.156

(10) Guinness Publishing Limited The Guiness book of answers, 10th edition. London. Guiness Books. 1995. p.669

(11) Nzimiro, Ikenna Studies in Igbo political systems: chieftaincy and politics in four Niger states. London. Frank Cass, 1972. p.5

(12) Obiechina, E. (Book No. A) An African popular literature: a study of Onitsha market pamphlets. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1973. p.7

(13) Forrest, Tom The advance of African capital: growth of Nigerian private enterprise. University of Virginia, U.S.A. 1994. pp. 145-147

(14) Obiechina, E. Op. Cit. P.x. (Book No.A)

(15) Forde, D. & Jones, G.I. The Ibo and Ibibio-speaking peoples of South-Eastern Nigeria. London. International African Institute, 1950.p.37.

(16) Henderson, Richard, N. The King in everyman: Evolutionary trends in Onitsha: Igbo society and Culture. New Haven. Yale University Press, 1972. pp.521-522.

(17) Obiechina, E. (Book No. B) Culture, tradition and society in the West African novel. London. Cambridge University Press, 1975. p.12.

(18) Obiechina, E. (Book No. A) Op. Cit. p.4

(19) Obiechina, E. (Book No. C) Literature for the masses: an analytical study of popular pamphleteering in Nigeria. Enugu, Nigeria. Nwankwo-Ifejika Publishers. 1971. p.5

(20) Obiechina, E. (Book No. C) Op. Cit. p.4

(21) Petersen, K.H.& Rutherford, Anna Cowries and Kobos: the West African oral tale and short stories. Mundelstrup, Denmark. Dangaroo Press. 1981. p.9.

(22) Obiechina, E. (Book No. A) Op. Cit. P.125

(23) Obiechina, E. (Book No.C) Op. Cit. P.4

(24) Obiechina, E. (Book No.A) Op. Cit. P.10

(25) Obiechina. E. (Book No. B) Op. Cit. P.12

(26) Obiechina, E. (Book No. C) Op. Cit. P.7

(27) Obiechina, E. (Book No. A) Op. Cit. P.120

(28) Owomoyela, Oyekan, editor A history of twentieth century African literatures. U.S.A. University of Nebraska Press. 1993. pp.13-23.

(29) Obiechina, E. (Book No. C) Op. Cit. P.81

(30) Owomoyela, O. Op. Cit. P.37

(31) Johnson, Samuel A history of Yorubas. New edition Lagos. CSS Press. 1997. Reprint of the 1921 edition. African Books Collective, Spring Catalogue, 2001. P.48

(32) Nwamife Publishing, Enugu Review in New Nigerian, Fri. 13 March 1981.

(33) Daily Times Newspaper Shortage of books amid surfeit of dons. Lagos. Daily Times, April 20, 1984. P.3.

(34) Stratton, Florence Contemporary African Literature and the politics of gender. London. Routledge, 1994. Pp.120-121.

(35) Gillham, W.E.C. Teaching a child to read. London. University of London Press, 1974. P.2.

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