The negative impact of social media on reading culture, especially among youths and children, was a major focus recently in Abuja.
An award winning author and lawyer, Dr. Chris Onyemaechi Okoboh, has advocated for a legislation to regulate children’s access to social media, blaming excessive social media use for diverting attention from books and intellectual development.
Okoboh, who also called for concerted action by the government and parents to reverse the trend, noted that, “Institutional development cannot be separated from the strength of its knowledge base.”
He gave the warning a few weeks ago in Abuja at the official unveiling of his new books and a news website.
At the event which drew politicians, academics, military officers, lawyers, different professionals, as well as the senator representing Delta North Senatorial District, Ned Munir Nwoko.
The four books, namely, Maritime Law in Nigeria, Nigerian Property Management, Nigerian Risk Management, and Arbitration in Nigeria, examine critical areas of law, commerce, institutional governance, and dispute resolution.
Nwoko, who was Special Guest of Honour and represented Ganduje, Chairman of the occasion, described the publications as “a celebration of knowledge, scholarship, and endurance.”
He said the books were “sufficiently informative to deserve wider circulation in universities, polytechnics, colleges of education, libraries, political institutions, and legislative bodies across the country.”
The senator purchased 400 copies of the books to support the author’s campaign to promote scholarship and reading culture in the country.
Okoboh, who has authored 67 books spanning law, governance, risk management, biography and fiction, said his body of work was driven by one conviction: “nations are built on institutions and institutions depend on knowledge.”
