ZODML’s Poetry Competition to Address Declining Reading Culture, Says Esiri

Uchechukwu Nnaike

The Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT), Zaccheus Onumba Dibiaezue Memorial Libraries (ZODML), Mrs. Ifeoma Esiri, has explained that the recently concluded poetry competition for undergraduates was aimed at addressing the declining reading culture among youths.
Esiri, who spoke to journalists ahead of the prize-giving ceremony of the Poetry Challenge, said the competition was organised to engage the students and promote reading.
She said the theme of the competition, ‘Motherhood’ is challenging and poetic, adding that the challenge was limited to public universities because the organisation felt there is need to support public universities and make them understand that they have not been forgotten.

According to her, ZOMDL received 791 entries from students in public universities and the judges screened and came up with eleven and later trimmed to five finalists.
An 18-year-old 200 level English Language student of Lagos State University, Saheed Sunday emerged as the overall winner of the poetry challenge. The winning Poem is titled: ‘A Poem About My Mother’.
The winner of the challenge received N100,000; the first runner-up got N50,000; second runner-up received N25,000 while the remaining two students got N10,000 each.

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.
“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,” Esiri said.

A BoT member, Ayo Obe, an author of children’s books, and one of the judges of the Poetry Challenge, Mrs. Aduke Gomez, commended ZOMDL for promoting reading culture among Nigerian youths, saying that the initiative would soon yield positive results.
Gomez said it took the judges three weeks to screen the submitted entries and she described the quality of the submission as incredible and of high standard.
“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,’’ she said
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.’’