Judeson Ogberaha |
Could you tell us about your early life?
I am from
Isoko in Delta State but was born In Ekiti State before my parents moved to
Ogun State. My parents were peasant farmers, so growing up was very tough. In
fact, I was a dullard in my primary school days. One day, my teacher had to
lock my friend and me in the toilet for two hours because an inspector was
coming to the school. After we were released, I asked why we had to be locked
up in the toilet and to my amazement, she said the decision was taken to
prevent us from embarrassing the school before the inspector should he decide
to ask us any question. That was my experience as a pupil in the primary school
back then. The dullard of those days has become a man imparting
knowledge on thousands of school children across the country and the continent
of Africa as our books are in demands even in America and European countries.
The incident was one of the things that challenged me to aim for excellence in
life. I wish that my teachers who see my books would remember me and that
ugly event. It goes on to mean that everyone can turn his problems to
success and that when a child is not doing well initially, he should be
loved and cared for and not given the kind of treatment that I received because
it could go a long way to affect the psyche of such child academically and
socially. It could make some children to suffer emotional imbalance and
inferiority among their peers.
When did you start publishing?
I started
publishing in 1996 when I found that there was a dearth of quality books in the
country. Instead of buying books made in the country, many high-brow private
schools were importing books from abroad.
Before you ventured into publishing, what
were you doing?
For over 15
years, I ran a private school where I taught in all the classes. That gave me
the first-hand knowledge about the missing areas in our curriculum. I didn’t
just wake up to start a school. It started when I heard voice instructing me to
pick chalk and begin to write. I started this and before I knew it, a parent
brought two children, later another one brought three children and it began to
grow from there. Our books are children friendly. What we have done is to break
down topics in languages best understood by the children. No matter how
complex the topics are, any child that takes our books will easy grasp it
because of our approach to it. If you check foreign books, you will see that
our culture and traditions are not reflected in them. We have accommodated all
these in our books to help the children have a good understanding of our
culture and also enhance their moral values. We have brought back the African
culture and values in our books and they have been having huge impact on the
children using them. We get testimonies about this and academic success from
schools and parents. For private schools, especially the high-brow ones to
adopt a book implies that it is of good quality. We are willing to and prepared
to partner with various state governments.
You appear to be concentrating on the primary
classes. Why is this so?
You cannot
build any solid house without a solid foundation. This is why we are
concentrating on producing books that will help in building solid foundation
for our children. We want our children to be well molded from the foundation
just like the Americans. When you see an American child, he or she thinks like
an adult because of the quality of knowledge impacted on them. This is what we
are out to achieve.
What are the challenges confronting you as a
publisher?
The
challenges are enormous. First is the challenge of power supply in the country.
Like many other companies in the country, we rely on generator to generate
power and to do this everyday means spending huge resources on a daily basis.
This is killing many businesses in the country as it affects your income and
capital by extension. Another challenge is the huge tax being charged by the
government. I am not saying that the government should not collect tax
from publishing houses but they should be lenient with us because we are
helping to correct social issues and consequently assisting the government to
lessen their problems. Finance is the next on the list of these problems. Publishing
business is capital intensive and when you approach the banks for loan, they
would ask for collateral and several other requirements. This is making it
difficult for many people with lofty ideas to thrive. This is one area I want
the government to look into to help entrepreneurs.
Looking at the books, one can see that your
name is in on all of them. How is it that you wrote Mathematics and
English Language books?
It started
as a result of necessity. My first degree is in English Language. I also have a
Masters Degree in English Language and currently doing my PhD in it but
situation made me to study Mathematics. If for the past 15 years our
children have continued to fail WAEC, it shows that our curriculum is failing.
Many children believe that Maths is hard but my experience has shown that
it is not.
Attention is gradually shifting to
e-learning, what threat does this pose to the publishing industry?
We are aware
of this and are fully prepared for it. But the challenges in the country don’t
make us really ripe for it now. The challenge of power supply does not
encourage e-learning and e -library. The problem of piracy also makes it
difficult for e-learning and e-library because by when you upload your works
online, pirates would easily and quickly feast on it.
How do you relax and what time do you have
for your family considering your family schedule?
I can count
on my fingers the number of times I have attended social functions or travelled
outside Lagos State in the last 30 years that I took up this task upon myself.
Sometimes, after working all day, I would pick my car key in the evening and
drive around. This is how I relax and I get inspired the more
when I do this. I write at night because the brain is more relaxed then.
As an avid reader and a writer one would
hardly believe that you would have time for love. When did you find love?
Behind every
successful man there is a woman. So, for me to succeed, I needed a woman and I
found one, a very brilliant and God fearing one. When I met her, I was still
operating a very small class of few children. When we met, I told her
that I had a call to teach the whole country. She replied by asking if it was
from that small place that I would teach the whole nation. Being a woman of
great faith, she saw through it.
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