Success Book Club: Meet the young man influencing Nima to read

In the heart of Nima, a young influntial man, Inusah Mohammed, is encouraging Nima to read. He is convinced reading is the only way his community can do away with some of the negative stereotypes the community has been battling with for years.

In downtown Nima, Inusah Mohammed has just returned from a meeting and he is socializing with his colleagues.

He acknowledges cheers and greetings as we walk down a one lane road used by vehicles heading in the opposite direction.

His fans affectionately call him “the great Maazi Okoro.”

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He is a very popular and imposing figure in this community where parents sending their wards to school is now  gaining root.

In 2015, he mooted the idea of establishing an organization to encourage reading in his community. The group would later expand to communities such as Mamobi and Newtown. His friends bought into the idea and the “Success Book Club” was formed.

Since then, the book club has held successive meetings in Nima, Mamobi and Newtown, all predominantly Muslim communities.

Mohammed says the club aims to eradicate “illiteracy completely from our midst.”

He tells me it is not going to be easy to eradicate it but “it is a vision.”

“A vision must be scary enough to push you to be able to do things,” he said.

Formed on July 1, 2015, the book reading club has about 120 members and it holds rotational meetings in the three communities (Nima, Mamobi and Newtown).

He is the Executive Secretary of the club but every month, a member of the group is selected to spearhead the activities of the group.

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According to him, the move is to do away with cult, a practice where one man is the lifeline of the group and when he is not available, the group collapses.

Quoting Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Mohammed says “We must eradicate illiteracy completely from our midst. We must do away with extravagant[AM1] , bureaucracy and similar manifestations in our communities.

“So, we took a queue from that,” adding that one of the reasons the book club was formed is that “we realized that the ignorant cannot be compared to the learned person.

“The learned person understands the ignorant because he was once ignorant himself. Two, we realized that the more you read, the more you learn, and the more you learn the more enlarge the lens in which you focus the world.

“The reader sees the world differently than the way other people see it.

The life stories of some influential and powerful people in the world also played a big role in the formation of the “Success Book Club.”

 

For instance, how Dr Ben Carson, a former US Republican Presidential hopeful, a surgeon, transformed from being a dunderhead to a brilliant student in class, influence the club’s formation.

He also tells me of how the rich and powerful, amidst tight working schedules, find time to read.

“If you follow Bill Gate, Warren Buffett, they are telling us that we are not reading enough. These are the people we think are the busiest people on earth because they are the richest. But you follow Warren Buffett and he tells you reading is his secret. You follow Bill Gate he tells you reading is his secret.”

“Every year, he gives the books that that at the end of the year every human being should read. These are the people that are making strides, positive strides in the world.”

Nima is a Muslim dominated community in the Greater Accra Region.

President Nana Akufo-Addo’s home is located in Nima and the area is beginning to see some improved road networks, Mohammed brags about that as we walk in the Nima market.

In 2011, he completed Accra Polytechnic and is currently pursuing a degree in Marketing at the University for Professional Studies in Accra.

In 2014, he run for assembly elections in his community but lost.

Nima is one of the difficult areas a child can grow up due to the level development. It is often counted among Accra’s slum areas.

The Akufo-Addo administration plans to establish a “Zongo Development Fund” to ease some of the pressure Nima faces.

Mohammed acknowledges Nima is a difficult community when he says: “The community is not where we want it to be and ignorance plays a very cardinal factor to the situation we find ourselves in.”

 

“A lot of youth have gone astray because of the people they’ve grew up to see in their home. People grow up to see, excuse me to say, elder brothers who have not done anything with their lives, who have not read, they’ve not had any light and as I said earlier, the light you see is the light you’ll appreciate.

To impact the community, the club organizes seminars, symposia and forums. He is convinced the “war turf” must not be lost to people who organize musical concert at the heart of Nima because “the sight you see is what you appreciate.”

All is not rosy for the book club, Mohammed reflects on the challenges.

He says majority of the members are secondary and tertiary students who have limited sources of income.

Financing and sustaining the group has been daunting especially when he himself has no regular source of income.

Since the book reading club was formed two years ago, they have read 10 books instead of 24 books at close of 2016.

“The books we read are quite expensive and it takes time for majority of our members to acquire them,” he says.

They have read and discussed books such as:  Think Big, Goals, How To Achieve Everything You Want Faster Than You Ever Thought Of, Who Will Cry When You Die, Western Civilization Through Muslim Eye, The Autobiography of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, The Civilization of Virtues, The Magic of Thinking Big, The Autobiography of Malcom X and The Arrow of God.

Despite the challenges, the club holds it regular monthly meetings, sometimes with invited guests.

Asked about the greatest book he has ever read, Mohammed paused, then blurted out: “The Greatness Guide written by Robin Sharma.”

 

In 2011, the Ghana Education Service released a report indicating that about 64 percent of pupils across the country cannot read and write.

Records also show that more and more book shops are closing across Accra where the reading culture is said to be high.

He points to that and say his community is a reflection of the dying reading culture.

He says, “for all you know, the shopping malls, there are no book shops. Accra Mall there is no bookshop, [Kotoka International] Airport there is no bookshop.

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“If you go to other places in the world, the first thing you’ll meet at the airport is a bookshop. It tells you how serious that country is. It tells you what the country is about.”

Mohammed is a fierce writer. He owns a blog and often highlight challenges in his community as well as Ghana.

In an article titled “Welcome to Nima,” he sought to challenge the negative narrative people have  about the community.

He wrote: “Some unscrupulous persons did wrong sometime ago and Nima as a whole was black-labeled. Labeled as “Notorious”.

“Stoutly and firmly, I object!”

In the heart of Nima, a young influntial man, Inusah Mohammed, is encouraging Nima to read. He is convinced reading is the only way his community can do away with some of the negative stereotypes the community has been battling with for years. Read Full Story