A National Library in Ruins 

Sunday Ehigiator,  who recently paid a visit to The National Library  on Herbert Macaulay Way, Yaba, Lagos, writes on its sorry state, which paints a picture of desertion,  ruin, and poor maintenance culture 

Hidden behind buildings without visible signage, a small painting of ‘The National Library’ on a broken fence to the left-hand side at the entrance; to your right, three rustic flag poles without a single flag on it, including the National Flag, rustic burglary-iron gates and the unwelcoming stench from unkempt toilets to your left are the sight that  welcomes you to the National Library in Yaba, Lagos.

Nigeria’s National Library

The National Library of Nigeria came into operation in the mid-1960s with the enactment of the National Library Act of 1964 which was later replaced by Act No. 29 of 1970.

Before the passage of the National Library Act, series of educational conferences conducted in Ibadan served as the intellectual basis for the creation of a network of libraries funded by the federal government to provide accessibility of educational materials to Nigerians.

A government advisory committee was later created concerning the necessity to develop a local repository of knowledge. The committee was charged with finding a way to aid the government in bringing to prominence the intellectual foundations of its policies, creating a national bibliographic centre and providing an arena for the promotion of knowledge.

The committee was the first major formal body that called for a National Library as part of its recommendations. The government accepted the demands of the advisory committee and undertook the necessary steps to build a National Library.

The construction of the library began in 1962 and it was finally opened for public use on November 6, 1964. It was first headquartered in Yaba, Lagos and was later moved from Lagos to Abuja in 1995.

Since this happened, development, attention, and maintenance seem to have been moved away from the Lagos library.

The Library

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) defines a library as an “Organisation, or part of an organisation, whose main aims are to build and maintain a collection and to facilitate the use of such information resources and facilities as are required to meet the informational, research, educational, cultural or recreational needs of its users; these are the basic requirements for a library and do not exclude any additional resources and services incidental to its main purpose.

“It includes any organised collection of books and periodicals in electronic or in printed form or of any other graphic or audio-visual materials. It includes virtual libraries and digital catalogues.”

 In other words, a library is a resource centre for any piece of information sought after. Before the advent of the internet and its drastic usage by the human race towards our contemporary society, the library was the real ‘Google’. Libraries served as resources for almost everything and they still do but they are rarely used by people in the world today.

Hence most public libraries are now deserted, outdated, unmaintained, and occasionally used as event centres for public ceremonies, such is the case of the National Library, Yaba, which is supposed to be a national resource centre for all researchers, academia, while also serving a great part as the preserver of our collective national history.

A Library in Ruins

One very major challenge one would first encounter about the National Library in Yaba when visiting for the first time is its location. Genuinely, this may not have been foreseen while it was being built, but the library is currently buried behind tall buildings along Herbert Macaulay Way, in Yaba. It took the help of Google Maps to navigate my way to the library.

Upon arriving, you will almost doubt you were at the right place due to the lack of any conspicuous billboard with the library’s name inscribed on it as befitting of a National Agency at its entrance, till you take a closer look at the broken fence to your left, covered by an electric pole, before you see the library name hand painted on the wall.

Next to welcome you are three standing rustic flag-poles to your right, with no single flag on them. Then you walk through the unmanned gate with no security man standing by it to vet visitors or direct them appropriately. However, there is a security house to the right side after entering the gate.

Just opposite the security house is the public toilet where all visitors to the library are supposed to ease off. It is dilapidated and completely looks unmaintained. The doors are broken, just as the roofs and the water closets.

From the entrance of the library, the biggest building, conspicuously a signature building of the library, facing visitors as they enter through the library gate is the library’s conference hall. The building which looks magnificent from the outside is a different tale from the inside. The stairs are still made of wood like in the 60’s.

Under the stairs are dusty books, clothes and furniture littered everywhere. Inside the main hall, the roofs are frail, no working air conditioning, and the lights are bad. It generally looks unkempt and in need of aggressive maintenance.

Facing the building, a little to your right is another long hall believed to be an extension of the main library, based on the design of the furniture found in it. Authoritatively, it has not even a single book in it.

All the reading tables and scanty chairs found in it were looking old, dirty, untidy, and broken, just like the ceiling fans. The roofs are dilapidated and leaking. The floor was looking dirty, and heaps of unprecedented luggage were placed in a few corners here and there.

By the left side of the conference hall is a playground looking unkempt with weeds all around it, and broken tree branches littered around it. Next to it is a big building, which is believed to be the main library. It is dusty, dirty, completely under locks and keys, and looking non-functional and deserted.

A walk around it, you will be met by a broken generator which looks abandoned, and an old-looking satellite information dish, also abandoned.  

Way Forward

It is bad enough that in this digital age, where Google and new Artificial Intelligence (AI) are the new waves, people or perhaps students don’t want to use libraries, and if they do, they are probably there to charge their phones or sleep off, abandoning a National library, which should serve a more national purpose of the historic connection, is worse.

Considering the area where the library is located, which houses several colleges and higher institutions, such as the famous University of Lagos, and Yaba College of Technology, among others, it begs the question of how can students’ reading culture be improved when libraries are abandoned and aren’t properly cared for?

Hence, the government needs to as a matter of urgency revive the National Library, Yaba, and transform it into a place for vital information sourcing and research centre once again.

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How can students’ reading culture be improved when libraries are abandoned and aren’t properly cared for? Hence, the government needs to as a matter of urgency revive the National Library, Yaba, and transform it into a place for vital information sourcing and  research centre once again