By Ozioruva Aliu

BENIN CITY – THE Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, has tasked Nigerians to inculcate the habit of reading as he said that solutions to any human challenges and means of attaining prosperity are contained in books.

Bassey said this in Benin City wekend during a book reading, story telling, and poetry session under HOMEF’s Community, Culture and Empowerment programme.

The programme was held to raise awareness about the environmental challenges facing the Niger Delta region and drew participants from civil society organizations, literary circles, and academic institutions including the University of Benin.

The event featured poetic performances and readings from celebrated Nigerian poet, Professor Tanure Ojaide, whose environmentally-charged works served as the focal point for reflection and discourse.

Speaking on Prof. Ojaide’s works, Bassey said “some of the things I have picked from Ojaide’s books re-en forces what we (HOMEF) believe about our environmental protection.

“These include species depletion, environmental degradation, and all these lead to prevalent poverty in our society.

“When species are depleted, the environment is degraded, and the lives of the people are also downgraded.”

He said his mission was to ensure that “those who come after us have an empowerment they can call home. So that when they breathe the air, it doesn’t kill them, when they drink the water, it doesn’t kill them, when they walk on the soil, they are safe.”

In his presentation, Professor Ojaide emphasized that his poetry aimed to promoting ecological literacy and to challenge both the Nigerian public and creatives to play an active role in the restoration of the environmentally degraded Niger Delta.