Scholarly Publication in Nigeria: Implications of Open Access

“Nigeria does not lack literary talent, but still, books written by native authors and further still, published by Nigerian publishing houses, are incredibly rare.” According to Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri, “The best writing is not about the writer, the best writing is absolutely not about the writer, it’s about us,it’s about the reader.” The African writer and reader are, however, confronted with several challenges: the writer faces the challenge of getting his work out to both a local and global audience, while the reader faces the challenge of accessing works by fellow Africans. A lack of proper infrastructure to facilitate the visibility and accessibility of Nigerian scholarly publications can be held accountable for these challenges.