Veep Bemoans Poor Reading By Youth

By Edmund Mingle
Wednesday, 04 March 2009

Vice President John Dramani Mahama yesterday launched a book titled, “Letter to Jomo,” a compilation of humourous feature articles by George Sydney Abugri, a renowned columnist, and bemoaned the poor reading culture of Ghanaians.
He said reading culture especially among the youth continued to deteriorate, and attributed this to the crave among for foreign music and films introduced by the information and communication industry, instead of books from which much more knowledge could be obtained.
The situation, he said, had culminated in the poor performance of students, because “you cannot gain knowledge without reading.”
“Apart from the knowledge people can gain through reading, the economics of scale will work to the benefit of publishers if more people read,” he said.
Vice President Mahama described the author as “a much-loved writer whose writing skill, discipline and commitment to his work had contributed to the development of the literary industry.”
The 375-page book is a collection of 100 out of over 1,000 feature articles published by Mr Abugri in his Friday column in the Daily Graphic since 1993.
The Vice President commended Mr. Abugri for his style of examining serious national issues with humour, yet enabling readers to get the wisdom in his message, and noted that he had used his talent to the benefit of the nation.
He urged the author and editors to identify and nurture the talents of feature writing in young journalists in order to groom a generation of feature writers to inherit the likes of Mr. Abugri.
He assured the publishing industry and the media in general of government’s support, but reminded the media of the need to be circumspect and responsible so as not to abuse the freedom of the press.
The Vice President bought the first copy on auction for GH¢500.
Mr. Abugri, a journalist, said he found it necessary to compile the articles to serve as a source for research in journalism schools as well as for pleasure.
He said the publishing of the book took him through challenges, such as the high taxes, access to funding 25 per cent advance payment on the sale of books to bookshops, which publishers encounter and which hinder the development of the publishing industry.
Mr. Abugri, therefore called for the introduction of a National Book Development Policy to effectively address these challenges.