The Non-governmental Association for Literacy Support Services (NOGALSS), an apex umbrella body of all NGOs in Adult and Non-Formal Education, has called for collective involvement to eradicate illiteracy from the country.
The NOLGALSS National President, Noah Emmanuel, disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday, during a courtesy visit to the Emir of Jiwa, Alhaji Idris Musa and also his investiture as the National Patron of the association.
Emmanuel said that there was need for well-meaning Nigerians to come together toward making the country a literate nation, which he said was the choice of the selection as the national patron.
“The challenge of illiteracy is enormous, it is not a one man show, we need as many hands as possible, capable hands as possible to fight illiteracy in Nigeria.
“And so we’ve come today and we’ve succeeded because His Royal Highness is now our national patron because we know him, he is capable and joining us, coming into the folks of NOLGALSS, we believe that we shall realise a literate nation.
“We are going into massive advocacy awareness and we are going to establish literacy centres particularly the national literacy village which we are proposing to be in Abuja.
“And this literacy village is going to accommodate people and develop them and then they will go into the society productively and that is what we are believing that very soon we will achieve,” he said.
While speaking on the 2023 elections, Emmanuel said that to overcome vote buying, there was need for sensitisation which informed talk with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to commit NOLGALSS into its voters education campaign.
He, therefore, commended the Emir for taking up the investiture, believing that he would add value to the association to make the country a literate nation.
“we have come to appreciate your passion for mass literacy campaign as evidenced by your consistent encouragement and attention to the educational development of your people and Nigeria at large.
“This your effort in the area of eradicating illiteracy is in tandem with the vision and mission of the ‘NEXT LEVEL AGENDA’ of President Mohammadu Buhari led administration.
“The proposed NOGALSS National Literacy Village is an empowerment village where all generations irrespective of gender, religion, ethnicity, political affiliations shall come to acquire and develop their skills, potentials and lifelong learning for a better future to the attainment of SDGs 2030 agenda,” he said.
Also, the National Chairperson, Contact and Mobilisation of the association, Mrs Faustina Egbunike, said that the literacy village would address the educational and skills need of the disadvantaged Nigerians.
Egbunike called on Nigerians to support tye association in getting the 40 hectares of land for the proposed literacy village.
“What we have in mind is first the issue of the literacy village to bring all Nigerians that are disadvantaged with regards to education, adult literacy and also skill acquisition.
“And by the time we finish, we will get to the level we are expected to get to.
“We need a massive land that will accommodate all we want to build, up to 40 hectares. So with him we can get it,” he said.
Responding, the Emir of Jiwa, Alhaji Idris Musa, said that illiteracy was an epidemic and if not eradicated could cause disaster to the nation.
Musa said that illiteracy had led many youths into becoming kidnappers and bandits, whom because of no education could hurt a fellow human.
According to him, without education, you cannot empower anybody, so we are keen to make education important by not dumping our children toward becoming menace to the society.
“I am happy to be part of them being that I am going to serve the masses to see that what we are going to do is correction to the masses especially our children that are abandoned without education and become a problem to us.
“With this organisation and with their intervention, I will spread out mission to the society and pray that God will capture it and it will yield a good fruit to us.
“Our youths is something that we need to caution. Nigeria is not the problem but we are the problem of ourselves.
” You train your children, when you don’t allow your children to move to area they are not supposed to move.
“The films they watch teaches bad morals to our children and we take it as a good thing especially in the media, social media, it motivated our children to go some ways that is not supposed to be,” he added.
The Emir however said that the country must take advantage of her population by embracing education at all levels irrespective of the tribe, religious and class, to make the country a great nation.
