Awardee of the Network of Book Clubs and Reading Culture Promoters (NBRP) 2025 Champion of Reading Award, Professor Chinwe Anunobi, has urged students not to allow Artificial Intelligence (AI) to diminish their intellectual capacity.
Instead, she challenged them to rise above passive consumption and become active producers of knowledge that will guide and enrich AI.
Anunobi who is the CEO of the National Library of Nigeria (NLN) stated this at the 2025 NBRP Conference and Annual General Meeting (AGM) which held in Abuja.
Addressing the students who participated in the NBRP Conference and Poetry Reading Competition, Anunobi urged them not to be dependent on AI nor addicted to electronic gadgets and their accompanying distractions.
“You are at that age when your brains are like computers that can absorb vast amounts of knowledge. So, fill it with the necessary knowledge now before you are older, when your brain is empty and can no longer do so.
“If you are always dependent on A.I your critical thinking and writing skills will die. A.I does not manufacture knowledge; rather, it collates knowledge inputted into it. Why not become a producer of knowledge the knowledge inputted into AI?
“If your parents are constantly on their smartphones and social media, do not join them. Pick up your books and read,” she said.
Meanwhile, the students of Model Secondary School, Maitama, emerged winners of the NBRP Poetry Reading Competition 2025. They were followed by Junior Secondary School, Apo, in second position and Junior Secondary School, Tunga Kwasou, in third place; while Chiemezie of Model Girls Junior Secondary School won the Best Overall Performance.
Winners were selected based on the aggregate scores of the students’ presentation and interpretation of the poems, the poem’s content, and the overall impact of their performance.
Model Secondary School, Maitama, won for their harmonized delivery of their selected poem. While other schools had their students perform different poems each, Model Secondary School students presented a single quality poem, dividing the stanzas among the four of them, with one person introducing and taking the first stanza, and all coming together to render the last two lines of the piece.
In his vote of thanks, NBRP Abuja Chapter Chairman, Chief Loye Olowokere, urged the children to be curious and critical readers.
“Your leadership is no longer in the future. It starts now. So, continue to read and ask questions as you read, because asking questions enhances your understanding. We commend all NBRP members and the Nigerian public present at the conference today. We want to take NBRP higher,” he said.
Themed “Reading: A Unifying Factor,” the conference and AGM, though annual events of the NBRP, form part of its Book City project, of which Abuja is the book city for the year 2025.
