Let me start with a question that might make you uncomfortable: When was the last time you read a book from cover to cover?
I don’t mean a WhatsApp broadcast, a Twitter thread, or a LinkedIn post. I mean a proper book, read simply because you wanted to, not because an exam depended on it.
If you’re struggling to remember, you’re not alone. And here’s the painful truth: Nigeria has a serious reading problem. But before you blame yourself, let me share something that will surprise you.
According to UNESCO data, Nigeria’s literacy rate hovers around 62%, while Kenya’s stands at approximately 82% and Ghana’s at 79%. Let me make that even starker: Kenya’s literacy rate is nearly 20 percentage points higher than Nigeria’s. Yet Nigerian students spend more years in school on average. How does that make sense?
This is the puzzle this article will solve.
We will not blame “laziness” or “culture.” We will not point fingers. Instead, we will follow the evidence. We will examine data on libraries, curricula, and book distribution, and along the way, we will discover why many of the common “explanations” for Nigeria’s reading problem are actually myths.
By the time you finish reading, you will understand: The issue is not the Nigerian people. The issue is the system.
Let’s Bust Three Myths About Nigerians and Reading
Before we go any further, we need to clear the air. There are three common assumptions people make about why Nigerians don’t read. Almost all of them are wrong.
Myth #1: “Nigerians hate reading.”
The claim is that Nigerians just don’t enjoy the act of reading. But let’s pause for a moment. If Nigerians truly hated reading, why do WhatsApp forwards of lengthy political analyses spread like wildfire? Why do Twitter threads on everything from finance to relationships go viral daily with thousands of comments and quote tweets? Why do millions of Nigerians devour Nollywood gossip blogs, online news platforms, and long-form Facebook posts?
The truth is, Nigerians read constantly. Just not books.
A 2018 NOIPolls survey found that only 4% of Nigerians read a book or literary material daily. But here’s the crucial context: that same survey measured reading books, not all reading. If they had measured time spent on social media, news apps, or online forums, the numbers would have looked very different.
What we are dealing with is not a hatred of reading. It is a specific lack of book-reading culture. And those are two different problems requiring different solutions.
Myth #2: “It’s only about poverty.”
This one sounds logical. Poor countries have less money for books, so people read less. But the data tells a different story.
Countries like Nepal (literacy rate ~70%, lower GDP per capita than Nigeria) and Bangladesh (~75% literacy) have invested heavily in mobile libraries, community reading programs, and classroom-level book access—and have seen their reading scores climb steadily year after year. Both countries are poorer than Nigeria in absolute economic terms, yet their reading cultures are stronger.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: poverty is not the primary barrier—political priority is. If the government allocates less than 10% of its annual budget to education (significantly below UNESCO’s recommended 15–20%), the problem is not a lack of national wealth. It is a lack of national will.
Myth #3: “Nigerians prefer oral traditions.”
This is perhaps the most elegant excuse people use. “Nigerians come from an oral culture,” the argument goes. “We were storytellers, not readers. So it’s natural that we don’t read books.”
This is only half true. Yes, Nigeria has rich oral traditions. Yes, historically, storytelling was passed down verbally. But here’s what this argument misses: oral and written cultures are not enemies. They can coexist beautifully.
Consider the rise of audiobooks. An audiobook is essentially oral storytelling recorded and distributed. Yet listening to an audiobook is still reading—just through a different sensory channel. The argument that Nigerians “prefer talking to reading” ignores the fact that millions of Nigerians listen to podcasts, follow spoken-word poetry, and engage in lively book club discussions on Clubhouse and Telegram.
Oral traditions are not the death of reading. They are an invitation to translate reading into formats that resonate. The failure is not in the culture. The failure is in how we adapt reading to that culture.
Real Reason 1 – The Quiet Collapse of Public Libraries
Let me paint you a picture.
Imagine a 12-year-old girl growing up in a small town somewhere in Kogi State or Zamfara or Ebonyi. Her family cannot afford to buy novels from the city bookshops. Her school has no library, just a dusty shelf with a handful of outdated textbooks. Where does she find books to read?
In any functioning society, the answer would be: the public library. But here’s where Nigeria falls desperately short.
Nigeria has approximately 316 public libraries for a population of over 200 million people. Do you understand what that means? It means there is one public library for every 720,000 Nigerians. That is not a library system. That is a library absence.
To put this in perspective, the global average is 6.4 libraries per 100,000 people. Nigeria has 0.15 libraries per 100,000 people. Let that sink in.
What about Kenya? The Kenya National Library Service operates 64 public library branches across the country. That might not sound like much, but remember: Kenya’s population is about one-fifth of Nigeria’s, meaning per capita, Kenya has roughly six times the public library coverage of Nigeria.
But it gets worse. Even where libraries exist in Nigeria, many are barely functional. Reports from 2024 described public libraries in the country as being “no better than the national archives," as they have derogatorily been called. Outdated collections, broken furniture, inconsistent electricity, and underpaid librarians who have not been trained in decades.
This is not an accident. This is the result of chronic underfunding. The education sector in Nigeria has consistently received less than 10% of the national budget, far below UNESCO’s recommended 15–20%. When you slash budgets, libraries are most likely the first to suffer—because they are seen as “non-essential” compared to schools and hospitals.
But libraries are essential. A library is not just a room with books. A library is an engine of social mobility. It is where a farmer’s daughter discovers that the world is bigger than her village. It is where a young entrepreneur learns financial literacy. It is where a retired teacher continues to grow.
Here is a thought experiment: If a 10-year-old in Lagos cannot access a single public library within a reasonable walking distance, how can we expect that child to grow into an adult who reads for pleasure? We cannot.
The collapse of Nigeria’s public library system is not a side note to the reading crisis. It is one of its primary causes.
Real Reason 2 – An Exam‑Centric Curriculum That Kills the Joy of Reading
Let us be honest with ourselves for a moment.
How many of us learned to dread reading because of school? Remember those long, dense passages that WAEC forced you to analyze? Remember how Literature-in-English class became an exercise in memorizing character names and plot summaries rather than actually enjoying stories? Remember how you read “The Old Man and the Sea” not because you wanted to but because you knew there would be a question about Santiago’s relationship with the sea?
This is the second major reason Nigeria lags behind Kenya and Ghana: our educational system treats reading as a chore rather than a gift.
In Nigeria, the curriculum is built almost entirely around examinations. WAEC, NECO, and JAMB dominate everything. Students are taught to read for one purpose and one purpose only: to pass tests. They are not encouraged to explore books beyond the syllabus. They are not given time during school hours to read for pleasure. They are not assessed on whether they have developed a genuine love for stories.
The result? A generation of young people who associate reading with stress, memorization, and the anxiety of exams. Is it any wonder they abandon books the moment they graduate?
Now let us look at Kenya.
Kenya’s Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC) takes a fundamentally different approach. From the early grades, students are introduced to “class readers” and “reading diaries” where they record their independent reading. Teachers actively encourage leisure reading as part of the curriculum, not as an extracurricular afterthought. There are specific content frameworks for Kenyan literature across multiple genres: memoirs, autobiographies, poetry, novels, short stories, and plays.
The reading diary is a brilliant innovation. Students track what they read, reflect on it, and share their thoughts with classmates. This transforms reading from a solitary, exam-driven task into a social, joyful activity. It also creates accountability: once a teacher asks about your reading diary, you are motivated to keep reading.
Ghana has taken similar steps. The National Reading Festival and World Literacy Day celebrations are institutionalized events. The Ghana Library Authority, in partnership with UNICEF, launched “Ghana’s Reading Year” to embed reading into the national consciousness.
In Nigeria, by contrast, reading promotion is treated as an afterthought. A national readership campaign may be announced every few years, but it rarely reaches the classroom level in a systematic, sustainable way.
Here is what Nigerian policymakers often miss: reading is a skill that must be practiced, but it is also a habit that must be cultivated. You cannot force children to love reading by testing them on it. You can only force them to pretend to read. True readers emerge when they are given choice, when they see adults reading, when they have access to interesting books, and when they feel that reading is a source of pleasure, not punishment.
Until Nigeria rethinks its exam‑obsessed curriculum, the reading crisis will persist, no matter how many libraries we build or how many books we print.
Real Reason 3 – Books Are Too Expensive and Too Hard to Find
Even if a Nigerian child develops a love of reading, even if her school has a supportive environment, she still faces an economic barrier that her peers in Kenya and Ghana do not face at the same scale.
Let me give you a concrete example.
In early 2024, a newly released novel of under 400 pages was being sold in Nigeria for ₦18,000. Let me repeat that: eighteen thousand naira for one book.
How many Nigerians can afford that? Not the average civil servant earning ₦35,000–50,000 per month. Not the market trader living hand to mouth. Not the family of five surviving on one income. For millions of Nigerian families, ₦18,000 would cover food for a week or two. Spending it on a single book would be an irresponsible luxury.
But the problem goes beyond individual book prices. Even families who want to buy books often cannot find them.
Nigeria’s book distribution network is heavily concentrated in major cities like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Ibadan. If you live in a small town in Taraba State or Bayelsa State, your nearest bookshop could be hundreds of kilometers away. Shipping costs add another layer of expense, and rural communities are left completely unserved by commercial book retailers.
This distribution gap is not inevitable. It is a policy failure.
Look at what Ghana has done. The “Library-In-A-Box” project, initiated in 2017, has distributed over 200,000 books to 68 basic schools across the country. The long-term goal is to distribute 500,000 books to schools with poorly stocked or nonexistent libraries. Each box is filled with age-appropriate storybooks for different grade levels, delivered directly to classrooms in underserved communities.
Think about the brilliance of this model. Instead of waiting for parents to buy books—which many cannot afford—or waiting for children to travel to distant libraries—which they cannot—Ghana brings books directly to the children. The boxes are secure, lockable, and designed to travel easily. Teachers are trained on how to use them.
This is not a complex solution. It does not require billions of naira. It requires political will and logistical coordination.
Nigeria has experimented with mobile library vans. The iRead Mobile Library, founded by Funmi Ilori, has been running since 2013, operating four vans that visit schools and communities in Lagos and surrounding areas. But this is a private initiative, not a national policy. One woman’s passion project cannot replace a coordinated, government-backed strategy.
In contrast, Ghana’s Library Authority has renovated its mobile library vans to reach underserved areas. By 2024, public libraries in Ghana recorded over two million visitors, with 70% of them being children.
That number—two million—is not an accident. It is the result of deliberate investment.
So here is the brutal arithmetic of Nigeria’s book affordability crisis:
Low average income
High book prices (driven by inflation, foreign exchange costs, and expensive imported paper)
Concentrated retail distribution
Minimal government intervention (no book subsidies, no school delivery programs)
No national “book box” or equivalent initiative
Combine these factors, and you have an environment where reading becomes a privilege for the wealthy rather than a right for all.
But here is the good news: this is fixable. Kenya and Ghana have shown that deliberate, low-cost policy interventions can dramatically increase access to books. The question is whether Nigeria will learn from them.
What Nigeria Can Learn from Kenya and Ghana
Let us end this article on a hopeful note. The situation is serious, but it is not hopeless. Both Kenya and Ghana have demonstrated that with the right policies, reading culture can be revived and strengthened.
Here are three concrete lessons Nigeria should adopt immediately.
Lesson 1: Use Digital Tools to Reach Rural Communities
Kenya has launched pilots using tablets and e‑readers in primary schools. The Kenya National Library Service has established a digital library platform with 200,000 e‑books available to the public. The government has partnered with Google to digitize learning across the country.
Nigeria does not need to reinvent the wheel. We already have mobile phone penetration rates exceeding 80%. We have thriving fintech and edtech sectors. Why not a national “e‑library” platform preloaded with thousands of free, locally relevant books? Why not distribute low‑cost tablets to rural schools loaded with curriculum-aligned reading materials?
Digital distribution eliminates printing costs, reduces transportation barriers, and allows for instant updates. It is not a complete solution—electricity and internet connectivity remain challenges—but it is a massive step forward.
Lesson 2: Adopt the “Library‑In‑A‑Box” Model at a National Scale
Ghana has proven that this works. Over 200,000 books distributed. Hundreds of schools reached. Minimal bureaucratic complexity.
Here is how Nigeria could implement it: a partnership between the Ministry of Education, the National Library of Nigeria, and state governments to manufacture secure, lockable book boxes filled with carefully curated age‑appropriate storybooks (in English and major local languages). These boxes would be distributed to every public primary school without a functioning library. Each box would include tracking sheets, reading guides for teachers, and a maintenance schedule.
The cost would be modest compared to building new libraries. And the impact would be almost immediate.
Lesson 3: Rethink the Curriculum and Institutionalize Reading Diaries
Kenya’s reading diary system is one of the most cost‑effective interventions any country can implement. It requires nothing more than a notebook, a teacher’s encouragement, and a small budget for classroom libraries.
Nigeria could pilot this in a few states, then scale nationwide. WAEC could even incorporate the reading diary into continuous assessment scores—not to punish students, but to incentivize consistent reading practice. Over time, the diary becomes a habit, and the habit becomes an identity.
Ghana’s National Reading Festival shows the power of celebration. Reading should not feel like punishment. It should feel like joining a community. Festivals, reading marathons, book fairs, and author visits can transform the emotional landscape around books.
One more idea: mobile reading vans as public policy, not private charity. The Ghana Library Authority has renovated and deployed vans to reach underserved areas. Nigeria has the resources—it has the population, the tax base, the civil service infrastructure. What it lacks is the political prioritization. This is not a resource problem. It is a will problem.
It Is Not the People, It Is the System
If you take only one thing away from this article, let it be this: Nigerians do not read less because Nigerians are lazy, uninterested, or culturally averse to books.
Nigerians read less because:
The public library system has collapsed, leaving millions with no free access to books.
The exam‑obsessed curriculum treats reading as a chore rather than a joy, and kills any love of literature by the time students graduate.
Books are too expensive and too hard to find for the average family, especially in rural areas.
There has been no sustained, strategic government intervention to solve any of these problems.
Kenya and Ghana are not magical. They simply made different policy choices. They prioritized reading as a national goal. They invested in libraries, teacher training, and book distribution. They understood that literacy is not just about test scores—it is about human development, economic mobility, and democratic participation.
Nigeria can make those same choices. The data is clear. The solutions are known. What is missing is the collective demand for change.
So here is my challenge to you, the reader: How many books did you read last year—from cover to cover—not for work or school, but purely for your own enjoyment?
Be honest with yourself. Then ask your neighbor. Ask your child. Ask your friend.
The answer might be uncomfortable. But discomfort is the first step toward change.
If this article made you think differently about Nigeria’s reading crisis, share it. Let’s start a conversation.
Because a nation that does not read is a nation that does not grow. And Nigeria deserves to grow.