Follow Us on Google
The chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT), Zaccheus Onumba Dibiaezue Memorial Libraries (ZODML), Mrs. Ifeoma Esiri, has explained why the organization focused on poetry as competition for students in public universities.
Esiri, who spoke to newsmen ahead of the prize-giving ceremony of the Poetry Challenge, flanked by a BoT member, Ayo Obe, an author of children’s books, and one of the judges of the Poetry Challenge, Mrs. Aduke Gomez, said it was meant to engage the students and promote reading.
Both Obe and Gomez commended ZOMDL for promoting reading culture among Nigerian youths and opined that soon it would yield positive results.
Esiri recalled that ZOMDL started in 2000 and has set up 54 libraries to boost reading, 34 in local government primary schools and 19 in correctional centres.
She explained that the project was based on the philosophy of Zaccheus Onumba Dibiaezue, who dropped out of primary school at 10, taught himself how to pass the civil service exam, got admission in 1952 to study Economics at London School of Economics and Political Science. He later enrolled at Lincoln Inn and passed the bar exam to practice the legal profession.
Esiri added: “We assessed our impact on library projects and because our libraries are physical libraries, we decided to do other things to encourage young people to be engaged. The competition is to task their brain and ZOMDL chose poetry because in Africa and Nigeria, we use language a lot.
“The theme is ‘motherhood’ and the topic is challenging and poetic. We limit it to public universities. We felt there is a need to support public universities and make them understand they have not been forgotten.”
According to her, ZOMDL received 791 entries from student5s in public universities and the judges screened and came up with eleven and again trimmed to five.
Esiri disclosed that the winner would g home with N100, 000, 1st runner-up gets N50, 000 and 2nd runner-up receive N25, 000 while remaining two students get N10, 000 each.
One of the judges, Mrs. Aduke Gomez, said it took the judges three weeks screened the submitted entries and she described the quality of the submission incredible and of high standard.
She said: “We could tell from the ones we listed. It was tough to shortlist the 11 best. We have intelligent children; they need direction and motivation to excel. We need to bring out the best in them.’’
A member of Board of Trustees, Ayo Obe, commended ZOMDL for the initiative and got involved in its library programme because it helps to children to cultivate the habit of reading books.
Obe, a former President of Civil Liberty Organization (CLO) described books as an important part of peoples lives, adding, ZOMDL is making books available online to students, schools and correctional service. We had the opportunity to distribute books in some prisons. ZOMDL is helping to improve reading among the youth.’’
The overall winner of the Poetry Challenge is Saheed Sunday, 18-year-old 200 level English Language student of Lagos State University. The winning Poem is: ‘A Poem About My Mother’.
