Imo State touts education as its biggest industry. This is not surprising as the State records one of the highest annual school enrollments and the greatest number of JAMB registration almost on a yearly basis. Government after government in the State therefore strives to make a mark in this all important sector.

It is no different for Governor Rochas Okorocha who promised free education up to the tertiary level. Whether or not the promise has been kept thus far, is a matter for another day but what are the likely effects of the rumoured relocation of the Imo State Library, and other education-related actions of the Governor on the growth or otherwise of education in the State?

The Imo State Library Board is a statutory body established for the purpose of providing library and information services for the teeming reading population in the State.

The board has its equivalent in every State in the federation and the structural design of the library in every state capital (at least in the South East) is, without doubt, the same, while the location also approximates to the same thing, that is the city centre. This is not without reason.

The function of the library as a repository of information encompasses acquisition, collation, analysis and dissemination of information in book and non-book materials for the benefit of information seekers. But dissemination of information by the library or information centre relates more to cataloging, abstracting and indexing to facilitate the retrieval of data from materials therein by users of the library.

It is different from dissemination as we know it in the electronic media. Whereas for instance, the radio and television avail you of information while you are in the comfort of your living room, you need to visit the library to access data/information in the books, periodicals and other information materials housed therein. The location of the library/information centre is therefore of paramount importance. It should be at a place where it can be easily accessed by all categories of information seekers.

This, no doubt, accounts for the central location of Imo State Library and those of the other states in the federation.

It is therefore not surprising that the much talked about relocation of the Imo State Library to somewhere near the Central Bank area removed from the city centre is attracting so much flak from the reading Imo public.

The advertised intention of the Governor for the planned relocation namely, to give readers a more serene environment for better assimilation, reasonable as it may sound, fails to cut ice when one realises that the library is meant for children, adults, handicapped and the aged alike. All these classes of people need to have access to the library without much difficulty.

About 80% of Owerri inhabitants live within and around the city centre and it will be quite a burden for a blind person, for instance, to be given the extra tedium of having to find his way to such a removed location in his bid to gather information. He and other such handicapped and aged people will need to look for a cab to get there. They will be discouraged.

Some observers have queried why the trees which have for years been part of the library surroundings and lent some serenity to its environment, were uprooted if the reason for the planned relocation is to achieve serenity. Trees have come to be identified with library locations all over the world and not only do such trees provide needed shades but readers also use the shades as recreation ground when they feel saturated.

Is it possible that there are personal reasons for the planned relocation? Some critics of the Okorocha Government who claim to have inside information, say the Governor plans to build a shopping mall for one of his relations at the present location of the library.

They are quick to make reference to many such precedents set by the Governor since he assumed office to corroborate their assertion. While not buying into that line of thought, one is hard put fathoming why the relocation of the library should be a priority for a Governor who has numerous uncompleted (some say abandoned) projects littered all over the State.

*Mr Ikediala, a political analyst, wrote from Owerri, Imo State