Soyinka
World renowned academic and Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, on Friday warned that the current internet revolution would destroy scholarship if reasonable steps were not taken.
The award winning author, who stated this while delivering the 3rd Zik annual lecture at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka in Anambra State, stressed that the heavy reliance on internet for academic activities would soon witness the end of books as instrument for mind development and potential building.
He observed that there had been palpable decline in writing and reading among the younger generation even as he urged them not to allow any primordial considerations to hinder them from developing their innate potentials.
The scholar, who noted that certain traditional, religious and western teachings prevented Africans from exploiting their environment and potentials, added that the problems in Nigeria today such as Boko Haram, which could be attributed to poor mental development, was occasioned by wrong teaching.
Stressing that communication gadgets like computers and IPAD were capable of bringing an end to the culture of book writing and reading, he argued that the end point should be how to find a way of collaborating between book writing and use of internet knowledge.
He maintained that such collaboration may have witnessed a revolution in the communication world, but regrettably had essentially destroyed the realm of imagination in young people.
The Nobel Laureate further called on young people to tap their potentials and not allow certain primordial factors within their environment inhibit them.
Soyinka, whose lecture was centred on the theme; “The Magic Lantern, Excursions in the Creative Realm”, submitted that the sun remained the magic lantern of the entire universe which gave life to the earth.
The brain behind the Zik lecture series, who is the Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Inter Party Affairs, Senator Ben Ndi Obi, said the project was started three years ago to immortalize Nigeria’s first President, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, in whom the school was named.
While describing the lecture as unique and thought provoking, he stated that the theme was one of Soyinka’s enigmatic cum realistic, adding that any attempt to unravel same without him would be like an excursion into oblivion and confusion.
Obi said the lecture series was a turning point in the process of actualization of his childhood dream of immortalizing Zik.
He explained that this informed why he endowed N10 million in 2010, with an additional N2 million over a five -year period for research in honour of this “icon and legend of all times”.
He opined that Zik’s faith in intellectual resources as a problem-solving stood tall in all his classical statements and actions as his Lincoln University experience re-affirmed his belief in education as a constructive social force which could be harnessed for social progress.
To the Chairman of the occasion, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the lecture was to honour Zik’s legacies and initiatives.
He pointed out that people knew him as a great inspirer of nationalism and Africa’s fight against colonialism mainly with his pen, which he used first in Ghana and later in Nigeria.
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