Agbo Areo

I have seen worst of universities products. I have come across several graduates who are not worth being addressed as graduates. There was a time we advertised for editors in Macmillan. One graduate from UI, English department, applied. I and the deputy manager, publishing were disappointed because the application was poorly written and the chap is from the same department with us. A graduate of UI! In this era of CV, we demand for handwriting application with CV attached. I have read some masters and PhD thesis. I am not saying that all the polytechnic graduates are good. I think how sound a student is depends on the student. If a university student prepares himself good, he will be good and if a polytechnic graduate prepares himself very good, he will be very good. The only problem with the polytechnic is that its teachers are not challenged enough. Once they get the job, they don’t update themselves and this reflects on the students.

I don’t believe that a polytechnic graduate who is better than a university graduate should be paid less because he is coming from the polytechnic; as a matter of fact, he should be paid higher and be made a boss because he is more competent. The companies that pay premium to the university graduates because of degree are not fair. It is unfortunate. It is not like that in overseas. It is your competence and capability that they look at. Overseas, someone who doesn’t have a diploma can be made the head of a department if he is competent. In the industry, people’s salaries are personal. A good company will make their staff’s salary personal and it will be based on competence and capability.

You have always been in the academic, why did you not advance above bachelor’s degree?

Maybe, I don’t feel that I need it. I entered into publishing in January 1972 and I have always been busy. I am well exposed academically. I have worked on many syllabuses, with authors, professors, lecturers, different kind of books on different subjects without any break. I combine this with the business aspect. I have gone for different short trainings, attended international book fairs. I am not saying it is not necessary, it is good but there is no time.

I think the question should have been: With the Internet, is the Western world (Europe and America) publishing fewer books? They are still publishing more and more books and they are selling. So, we have problems here, among which I have mentioned. Some parents don’t control their children watching television and the children are not reading. Some children will wake up in the morning during the holiday, eat and get glued to the television. Hardly do they read in a day. They cannot even help their mothers to do anything because of television.

Could you give insight into the emergence of Pacesetter?

It was in the UK office that it started. It happened when I was an editor before I became deputy manager, publishing. I told them that Macmillan has lots of its own series like Treasure Island and Back Arrow. I felt that we should have a series that will have Nigerian flavor. I told them that we should have a series that the Nigeria readers can identify with but they didn’t agree because we were educational publishers. It took me about two years to convince them. One day, one of the senior editors, a lady said that Agbo, you have been talking of this, let us see the sample. The director invited us for a dinner in UK and the lady said to the director that people are talking about series for Africa and he said yes, he has heard of it and the lady said that we should do something.

I wrote to the Director in UK and sent it to the senior editor and she liked it and she said, Chris, the director wants to see it. The director then said that we can’t publish just one novel. They have been getting manuscripts and turning them down but they retained two manuscripts: The Smugglers and The Undesirable Element and sent them to me for advice. I read The Smugglers but I didn’t like it. I read the other one, it was too long. In The Smugglers, there were a lot of American slangs and I didn’t know that the senior editor had made that comment. Anyway, we cut off all the American slangs, and substituted some with British words. For The Undesirable Element, we cut off some part and we published the three: Director! The Smuggler and The Undesirable Element in 1977. All the 5,000 copies published for each book were sold in three months. Each copy was sold at N1.

To the booksellers, we gave 20 percent discount. Later, we published another three and they sold very well. That was how we continued with the series and we published 130 novels before we stopped. Despite the fact that I am a staff, Macmillan was paying between 100 and 150 pounds into my British account for every manuscript sent to me for advice. Some of the novels were selling between 60,000 and 80,000 copies. Later, they started selling in Ghana but Nigeria was the main market because of the population. In 1979/80, when Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, introduced free education, the government took up the responsibility of buying textbooks from the parents for the students, so the parents have extra money to give to their children to buy Pacesetter novels. Interestingly, they were reading Pacesetter novels in the North. For the first time, they had a popular Novelist, Muhammed Sule who wrote The Undesirable Element. It competed very well with novels like Mills and Boon.

Why did you write only two of the series?

I had other things that I was doing but I have written other books. I wrote six books all together.

Why is it that we don’t see Pacesetter to buy again?

The reason Pacesetter is not available is that it is a UK imprint which the Nigerian company can’t import again because of bad economy. I have just been licensed to publish four of the series. If I had taken more of the series, it would have been better. Pacesetter is for teenagers. There was a time some businessmen were buying copies from UK and selling but it is not sustainable. It is still available in South Africa.

What is the thematic preoccupation, the message of pacesetter?

That was where an academic and I got into conflict. A friend in the academic wrote a review of general reading in the first edition of the Guardian Newspaper. On Pacesetters, he said, not sufficiently committed. That was the term of Marxist who said that literature should serve a purpose. Then I took my pen and wrote a rejoinder. I said the purpose of Pacesetter is to entertain, and create room for deductive education and that we were not competing with any series. Besides, our aim is to write in the language that teenagers can understand, have characters that the teenagers can identify with and to be able to identify the setting. Afterward, when my friend, Kole Omotosho saw me, he accused me of being personal in my rejoinder. What makes the success of that book is language. Then, Nigerians could read about Ibadan, Lagos, Kano instead of London and Carter Bridge they don’t know. I am happy that God used me for humanity and I am happy that Macmillan people realized that and make me comfortable. I later went into private publishing.

The reason Pacesetter is not available is that it is a UK imprint which the Nigerian company can’t import again because of bad economy. I have just been licensed to publish four of the series. If I had taken more of the series, it would have been better. Pacesetter is for teenagers. There was a time some businessmen were buying copies from UK and selling but it is not sustainable. It is still available in South Africa.

How lucrative is publishing now?

No business in Nigeria is lucrative except politics and church.

What do you have to say about reading culture in Nigeria now?

It is obvious. People no longer read for obvious reasons. If you can’t feed well, how can you read? If your parents are civil servants and they are not paid, how can you read? Again, in the 70s, we had stability in power relatively. You can read at night. We enjoyed university in those days because there was always light 24/7. Another reason is that Nigeria is a very noisy place. Noise is increasing every day. Nearby churches or mosques disturb people with their noise early in the morning. I must tell you that lack of reading culture portend decay of intellect in our society.