The governor of Rivers State Governor, Mr Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has called on literary writers across the country to channel their ideas toward issues that would provide solutions to the myriad of problems facing the country.
Mr Amaechi made this known while declaring open, the 5th Garden City Literary festival in Port Harcourt on Wednesday.
The theme of this year’s literary festival is: Women in literature.
According to the governor, “the nation is still seeking ways to address issues of poverty, poor educational system and the challenge of managing the nation’s resources to improve the living standard of the people.”
Amaechi observed that writers owe their readers the best literary satisfaction as he advised them to strive to match their writing style with their field of study.
The governor identified that there is one problem with Nigerian writers, “especially those of them who didn’t study literature. They have to impress their readers on style and to convince the literary writers that they are qualified to dwell in the field of literature” he stated.
“Take Chinua Achebe as a writer for instance; what I love in Chinua Achebe’s writing is the book ‘A Man of the People’. In that book, you will see the replication of the Nigerian Political life after independence.”