How Nigeria Int’l Book Fair 2025 can ressurect Nigeria’s ailing education system
By Olufemi Timothy Ogunyejo
WHEN the news broke early this morning May 6, 2025 that a staggering majority of candidates in this year’s UTME examinations scored below 200 marks, it wasn’t just a headline—it was a heartbreak. A chilling confirmation of what educators have long feared: our academic lifeblood is thinning. Like a parched well in a once fertile land, the fountain of knowledge is drying up. The time has come not just to worry, but to act.
In the face of this grim academic prognosis, the Nigeria International Book Fair 2025 (NIBF)—scheduled for May 7 to 9 at the Balmoral Convention Centre, Lagos near Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja—emerges as more than a literary event. It is a clarion call. A convocation of conscience. A summit not just of books, but of bold ideas to resuscitate a struggling education system gasping for breath and relevance.
This year’s fair bears the theme ‘Local Paper Production: Panacea to Affordable Book Production and Quantitative Education.’ But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find a deeper mission—to stitch together the torn fabric of Nigeria’s educational integrity. From the Honourable Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, to frontline academics and industrial stakeholders, this summit promises a cross-pollination of policy and practice, vision and veracity. As the old adage says, ‘until all children are gathered, we cannot know who will lead…’ The NIBF is the chance to gather minds, marshal resources, and ignite reforms that will determine the future captains of the ship of state.
Make no mistake: this is not just about paper and print. Books are beacons. Pages are pathways. And in a nation where over 20 million children are out of school, they may be the last hope. With Nigeria’s literacy rates lagging behind global averages, and classrooms turning into echo chambers of disinterest, the importance of an initiative like the NIBF cannot be overstated.
Minister of Education Mr. Tunji Alausa
When books are priced beyond the reach of the common man, ignorance flourishes and poverty prevails. But when books are birthed locally, affordably, and abundantly, they become bridges—linking the classroom to the community, the student to the solution, the present to the possibility.
The 2025 edition is poised to surpass all expectations. From the economic buzz it creates—last year’s NGN200 million in book sales is proof—to the cultural conversations it inspires, NIBF is more than an event. It is a movement. A marketplace for minds, where educators, publishers, manufacturers, and ministers can mingle and mastermind a brighter future.
Notable voices like Prof. Abiodun Oluwadare, Segun Ajayi-Kadir, and Rogers Nforgwei will headline sessions that cut to the core of Nigeria’s publishing challenges and proffer sustainable, scalable solutions. As stakeholders, your presence is not just welcomed—it is imperative.
To every provost and professor, every rector and registrar of Nigeria’s higher institutions, every publisher and policy-maker: Come. Let us reason together. Let us rewrite the script before the final act closes on our education story! Nigeria’s youth can no longer afford the luxury of our apathy and languish behind their mates in the global market place of learning and intellect.
The book fair is not just about books—it is about building a bridge back to excellence. If you want to see a Nigeria where education is no longer an afterthought but the agenda, then the NIBF is where you should be. Because when the well of wisdom is full, even the driest land can bloom again.
Join us. Let’s turn the page. Let’s write a new chapter—for education, for Nigeria, for the future.
* Ogunyejo writes on behalf of the Marketing, Media & ICT Committee of Nigeria International Book Fair 2025
