Introduction

Athena centre for policy and leadership in one of its recent publications on Athena governance insight published a well-researched out article titled “reforming transparency in Nigerian universities to unlock global funding and restore credibility”. This article is being discussed currently in the intelligentsia community with the view to get the best out of our universities in Nigeria.

While these detailed conversations were going on about the above-mentioned published research work, the thought of the reality of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) medical library Nnewi crossed my mind. We are convinced that as a duty which we owe our society, it is necessary that we bring to the attention of the university management the reality of that facility at this moment.

Nnamdi Azikiwe University Campuses

Nnamdi Azikiwe University has its campuses located in the three (3) senatorial districts of Anambra state.

The university main campus is located at Awka (Anambra Central), College of Health sciences Okofia Nnewi (Anambra South) is home to the medical campuses, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences Agulu (Anambra Central) for pharmaceutical studies, and Faculty of Agriculture Ifite Ogwari (Anambra North) for agriculture studies.

Nnamdi Azikiwe University libraries impact on scholarship.

Nnamdi Azikiwe University has functional libraries in most of these campuses which is aimed at supporting scholarship by providing very serene atmosphere to facilitate studies/research, assist students who cannot pay for textbooks have access to textbooks of great quality to help with their studies and provide a sense of community to undergraduates who have well established interests in self-development and scholarship amongst other many advantages.

These libraries played key role during my undergraduate days in the university so many years ago but one thing i can attest to is that they have not always been in the best of conditions.

Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) libraries.

Prof. Festus Aghagbo Nwako Library Awka which is arguably one of the biggest libraries in Africa is located at the main campus of the university in Awka. It serves the Awka citadel of learning campus community. While I have not visited the library in years now, I am hopeful that it is being maintained so as to serve the reading public effectively.

Nnamdi Azikiwe University Medical Library Nnewi serves the medical students who are in the clinical classes, undergraduates of the College of health Sciences Okofia campus who are on clinical posting, medical doctors in training, undergraduates of College of Nursing Sciences NAUTH, staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University teaching hospital Nnewi and any other person who wishes to use the serene space for their studies.

The Medical library at Nnewi and the College of health Sciences Library Okofia are under the custody of the College of Health Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University management Nnewi. The faculty of pharmaceutical sciences is responsible for the pharmaceutical library which is expected to serve the academic population in Agulu. We do not have verifiable trace to a functional library at the agriculture campus Ifite Ogwari.

Education in a world where distraction has become a destructive plague.

While a lot of scholars can argue that we have a lot of young people who are not interested in working very hard to make the most out of their academics as undergraduates, an unscheduled visit to Nnamdi Azikiwe University medical library Nnewiichi Nnewi during the weekdays would make such a person do away with such thoughts.

This is because we have established that over time, the population of medical students in their clinical classes and the undergraduates from the college of Nursing occupy the library where they often spend hours studying but unfortunately on close observation one would notice that the space is outrightly hot because of lack of dedicated power supply to operationalize the fan and air condition system. This explains why the reading seats close to the windows are always the first seats to be occupied in the medical library. It is worthy to note that the sockets in this medical library where laptops can be plugged are mostly unavailable and where available are largely not functional.

We are well aware that such is the reality of the Okofia Nnewi and Agulu campus libraries. The ever friendly and seemingly dedicated staff of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University medical library Nnewi can begin to have users of the library sign in and out of the library to have a data of its daily users, to know the volume of people this intervention if implemented would be useful to.

Nnamdi Azikiwe University under Prof. Joseph Ikechebelu’s leadership.

One of the reasons why we are deliberately taking our time to make sure that we put the narrative of Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) libraries into writing is because with the recent developments in the great citadel of learning under the leadership of the acting vice chancellor who is a scholar by choice and in its truest form ever, it is very loud to the deaf that the university administrator and his team are desperate to see Nnamdi Azikiwe University work in such a way that everyone who has anything to do with the institution would be very proud.

The ripple effect of making our libraries in all the UNIZIK campuses functional cannot be overemphasized. It is our wish that these libraries are looked at with the view to upgrading them, provide them with dedicated power supply, sockets with which laptops can be used in these libraries and whatever renovation (purchase of textbooks inclusive if necessary) that would be needed to make these libraries most functional.