THE Federal Government has approved the sum of 1.8 billion for the National Library of Nigeria, for its expansion project and implementation of some other capital projects under the 2017 budget.
National Librarian and Chief Executive Officer of NLN, Professor Lenrie Aina, made this known on Monday during the opening of tender bids for the implementation of the projects in Abuja.
Aina, who maintained his zero-tolerance against corruption, warned the contractors bidding for the projects and procurement staff of the National Library against bribery and corruption.
He vowed that any staff member involved in the collection of bribe from the contractors or found to have breached the procurement process would be handed over to the officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for prosecution.
He said: “I will ensure that there is fairness. Any of my staff member that wants to interfere with the process will be dealt with accordingly. I came here with my integrity intact. I want to assure you that there is transparency in the entire process.
“I want to appeal to contractors, don’t tempt our procurement staff members. When they are tempted they misbehaved. For God sake, whatever they have done for you, they are merely doing their work that they are being paid for.
“Please, let us all uphold this transparency. And if any of them ask for anything from you, just tell me directly,” he said.
He disclosed that the projects to be executed include, completion of the National Library branches in Gombe and Katsina, building of new branches in Jalingo, Taraba and Oyo States.
He said: “We advertised for several projects. We want to have branches in every state of Nigeria. We currently have branches in 25 states now. When we establish a branch in any state, we call it a temporary branch, the state will supply the building to us, we occupy it with the hope of building a permanent branch.
“We have almost completed the branches in Gombe and Katsina, remaining the fencing of the two buildings and are starting a new building in Jalingo, Taraba State and Oyo State.
“We are in ICT age, so we advertised for many computers. We are also trying to establish National Virtual Library that will cover the entire country, where we would be linked with all our branches digitally.
“We are also trying to furnish the branches that we have just completed,” he explained.
Prof. Aina, further noted that the main mandate of the National Library was to collate all books published in Nigeria by Nigerians about Nigeria anywhere in the world for national heritage.
He said it was unfortunate that of over 1 million books published annually in Nigeria, less than 10 per cent of the books are collated because of the failure of the publishers to comply with the law in that regard.
He disclosed there was a law that was promulgated in 1970, that “if you are a commercial publisher, you give us three copies, state agency 10 copies and Federal agency 25 copies. But most organisation hardly comply with this provision of the law.
“To make things more terrible, there is fine or sanction. When The law was enacted in 1970, the sanction was N50. N50 was so much money then but today, even in the process of instituting a court process, you are talking thousands of naira,” he said.
Accordingly, the Chief Librarian said the Federal Government has approved the organisation of sensitisation workshops in four zones across the country to persuade people on the need to submit copies of their published books to the National Library in line with the provision of the law.
“In some other countries of the world, their national library can tell you the number of books published in a year but here we can’t tell you that. I know that we produce up to 1 million books every year. But I doubt if we can collate up to 10 per cent of that,” Aina said.
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