BEVERLY HILLS, October 27, (THEWILL) – The Delta State Library in Asaba, the state capital, is facing electricity crisis, following the failure of the state government to pay its electricity bills, THEWILL has learnt.
The library which is supposed to be a research centre for students, public servants and people from all social strata has been in a comatose state as nothing in the facility is functioning effectively.
Besides the electricity problem being faced by the state-owned library, there are other myriad of issues confronting the management of the library which can easily pass for a glorified secondary school library.
Sources said that the library which is grossly underfunded has no government patronage as all the books in the shelves were facilitated by Book Aid International and the ETF project. The library’s surrounding is over grown with weeds and oozes out urine occasioned by the unhealthy use of the toilet facility in the premises.
THEWILL investigations revealed that several iron fabricated reading chairs used by readers are broken with a crack on the plastic seats.
The library is unkempt and spider’s cobwebs are visible on the walls inside the building, suggesting that besides the government failure, the management of the library is not doing enough to keep the place clean and tidy.
The services rendered at the library are contrary to the picture of a modern city library displayed in a roster at the entrance of the facility. Due to the appalling state of the facility, the patronage at the facility has since dwindled. A man who walked into the library some few days ago was said to have
exclaimed, “what kind of a library is this?”
The library, situated along the popular Nnebisi road and sharing boundary with the High Court and the popular Grand Hotel, owned by Asaba businessman, Chief Sunny Odogwu, is an eyesore for a State whose governor has received several awards for good governance.
Very shocking, the library cannot afford to pay its electricity bills and has been cut off from the national grid some few years back.
The authorities however resorted to getting power from their neighbour, the hotel nearby, which sources said had magnanimously supplied the library electricity since 2013 but about six months ago, disconnected the building, THEWILL was told.
Although the state government was said to have inherited the library from Oshimili South Council, it is expected that government would have rehabilitated it to a standard befitting a state library compared to other state’s library like the ones in Akwa Ibom, Kwara, Lagos and others.
THEWILL learnt that the Uduaghan-led administration had inherited a library project started by his predecessor, Chief James Ibori, but for eight years running, the project is still at the elementary stage for reasons yet to be ascertained.
Reliable sources disclosed that the Ministry of Higher Education which is the supervising government ministry in charge of the state library, headed by Commissioner, Prof. Hope Eghagha, a university teacher, couldn’t effectively defend the budget of the library project sometime ago during a budget defence session at the state House of Assembly, citing the general erroneous impression that people no long read in the library and as such it would be useless investing on the project which would only become moribund in few years time.
“I could remember that there were issues of whether to site an e-library or just stock the place with books, the source said adding; Commissioner Eghagha is the one in charge and their contention then was that library project doesn’t thrive because of the poor reading culture in the country,” a source said.
Another source close to the state government, craving anonymity, said; “The library is one of the things that a state should use to prop its image because people from all social strata come for research work in the library and by the time a first time visitor enters that obscure and ill-equipped place called state library, what impression do you think they will take home?
“Go and see how students read in pitiable condition in that place, sweating as a result of heat. What kind of impression will these students get about the government? The period they are writing WAEC, GCE or JAMB is worst because the place is usually over crowded. Maybe they want protests placards or an appeal call from people first before they would act.
“All the books in the shelves are sponsored by the Federal Government Education Trust Fund (ETF) in 2001/2002 including the moribund e-library department, supported by Universal Service Provision Fund, the generating plant provided by ETF is grounded there, so where are the state government funding, where are the government budgetary allocation for the state library board going into.
All efforts to reach the State’s Commissioner for Higher Education, Prof. Hope Eghagha, proved abortive but State Information Commissioner, Mr. Chike Ogeah, who asked for time to respond to this report before publication later responded via blackberry messenger saying that the library has its own independent power source. He also claimed the facility has been given a facelift by the current administration.
“It is not true that Grand Hotel ever provided power there, infact Grand’s generator is a major menace and nuisance to the library. The library has been given a facelift since the advent of this administration. The facility has its own generator but powering it for 12 hours in most cases is the challenge due to the dismal power situation in Delta and indeed Nigeria.
“A modern state of the art library costing about N400 million naira is currently in progress and has reached a very advanced state. The location is the core area beside the central bank building,” he wrote.
