As the proposed relocation of the Imo State library from its present strategic location to the alleged residential building in an obscured area of New Owerri continues to attract condemnation from well meaning persons and groups across the state and country.
The Nigerian Library Association (NLA) during the week joined the league in a protest to the Imo State Government House, Owerri, the Press Centre, PortHarcourt Road and the Imo State House of Assembly Complex, New Owerri against the proposed relocation.
The protest brought together hundreds of aggrieved staffers of all academic institutions and government agencies in the state who flooded the streets of Owerri to show their total disapproval and unacceptance of the government’s proposal which they say is inappropriate and counter productive to the much talked about education in Imo.
In two separate letters signed by the State Chairman of the Association, Mr Jonathan C Ogugua addressed to the Governor and the Speaker IMHA respectively commended the Governor for the free education policy but advised the Governor to borrow a leave from Abia, Akwa Ibom and Anambra states to establish an E-library for the state in order to meet up with the modern education challenges, than move the library to an uncompleted residential building whose architecture has noting to do with library in order to make way for a car park.
The letters however prayed that the relocation be put on hold/suspended for proper consultation, a modern library be built as stipulated in the New Owerri Master Plan and allow the present state library to remain as the Owerri Divisional Library as it were before the creation of Imo State in 1976, that more libraries should be built in the state to support the services of the existing library to meet the varying needs of the education conscious citizens of the state.
Others prayers includes that consideration be given to the staffers of the library that may be badly hurt and destabilized with such relocation, as accessibility and convenience are prerequisite for a library, that the effect on the only Library for the blind in West Africa, that the ancient landmark represented by the State Public library “Library round-about Owerri” among other prayers be considered.
