If you want to understand the Nigeria’s relationship with knowledge, books, and literacy, you don’t need to look too far, just take a drive to the Central Business District in Abuja. There you will find our National Library project, a concrete skeleton that has been “under construction” since 2006. Nineteen years, five presidents, countless budgets, and what do we have? A half-dead carcass of what was supposed to be an 11-storey national treasure.

The National Library was conceived as the cathedral of Nigerian knowledge, the safe house for every book published in this country, the sanctuary for research, and the archive of our national memory. But successive governments have treated it like an orphaned child, leaving it to rot while chasing contracts that don’t matter. In 2006, Reynolds Construction Company got the job for ₦8.59 billion with a 22-month deadline. Today, cost estimates have ballooned to ₦218 billion. From eight floors to five, back to eleven, up, down, sideways, the only thing that has grown consistently is the bill.

Now, to add insult to injury, the First Lady, Senator Remi Tinubu, decided to mark her 65th birthday by asking Nigerians to contribute money to finish the project. She said: forget flowers, forget adverts, just pay into a special account so she can receive “the best birthday present.” A nice gesture? Maybe. But let’s call it what it really is: a tragic joke. Since when did completing a National Library, a basic symbol of civilisation become a charity drive?

This is not a borehole for a remote village; this is the National Library of Nigeria. It is the symbol of our literacy, our intellectual heritage, our history. And now, thanks to the “Oluremi@65 Education Fund,” about ₦20.7 billion has been pooled from birthday gifts.

Clap, clap. Except, why should a serious nation applaud this? That ₦20.7 billion, while impressive as an act of generosity, is an indictment. It proves just how unserious successive governments have been.

We must say this clearly: Nigeria’s National Library is not a Motherless Babies’ Home. It is not a borehole project in the village square. It is a matter of national honour, dignity, and history. When other nations debate libraries, they argue about funding cuts of one or two percent. In the UK, a minor budget slash in 2016 caused national outrage. Here, in Africa’s so-called largest economy, we have reduced ours to begging bowls and birthday gifts.

How can a country that found ₦90 billion for Hajj subsidies in 2024, ₦142 billion for six bus terminals, and ₦39 billion overnight for the International Conference Centre renovation suddenly plead poverty when it comes to its National Library? How is knowledge less urgent than airports, buses, and jamborees? If anything, this scandal underlines what we have always known: Nigeria’s ruling elite don’t read, don’t value books, and don’t believe in ideas.

The First Lady may have meant well, but she was a senator in 2017 when this same project was condemned by the Senate as a circus of variations. Back then, the cost was ₦50 billion. She saw it, said it, but nothing moved. Now, as First Lady, she is asking the same citizens who live without power, who import fuel, who are taxed from dawn till dusk, to contribute spare change for a library their taxes already paid for several times over.

This is not about charity. It is about political will. Leaders who genuinely value intellectual growth will move heaven and earth to complete such a project. Buhari told TETFund to fund it in 2021. ₦15 billion was earmarked, but conditions and bottlenecks buried it. Today, we still hear the same excuses: cost reviews, contractor commitments, FEC approvals. Endless stories.

Meanwhile, the National Library of Nigeria, relocated from Lagos to Abuja since 1995, still operates from a rented building. Internationally, our National Librarian is ridiculed at global conferences. “What is holding your project?” colleagues ask. What else can she say except: “Nigeria happened.”

Let’s stop pretending. Until this government treats the National Library as a matter of urgent national importance, not a birthday charity project, we will remain the butt of jokes in the comity of nations. A National Library is not optional; it is a civilisation marker. It is the memory of a people.

President Tinubu should take note: Nigerians don’t want to crowdfund their civilisation. They want leadership that invests in it. Completing the National Library is not a favour to the people; it is a duty. Enough of this disgrace. Finish the building. Fund it. Equip it. And for once, prove that Nigeria values Education.