Benefits of literacy to Nigerians

In Nigeria, literacy was encouraged with the introduction of newspapers to the Egba-speaking Yoruba people.

It was discovered that the people of Egba in those days could not communicate well in English but in Yoruba.

The media thus found ways to reach the Egba people in order to communicate with them in the language they could understand.

It was as a result of this that the media executives came up with the first newspaper in Nigeria, Iwe-Irohin fun awon araa Egba.

As Nigerians, literacy can contribute to our economic growth.

Literacy reduces poverty and crime in the society, even though people are still committing grievous offences. Literacy promotes democracy and a peaceful nation.

Literacy fosters increased political participation and contributes to the quality of public policies and democracy.

Literacy enables parents to impart knowledge to their children by giving them newspapers to read, buying them books on historical developments or on people that contributed to the impact of literacy programmes in Nigeria.

Also, children can be given magazines to read because whether we realise it or not, magazines also have a lot information for people.

Youths and children can go to websites to seek for important information. Another site for literacy is the social media. The social media is a platform through which literacy can be developed in Nigeria.

On the social media, we see different kinds of information— on Twitter, Facebook and the rest.

In a nutshell, Nigerians need to make the issue of literacy an important one  by getting information and educating themselves about what is going on in the society and country at large.

Olagundoye Joshua Oyo, Oyo State.