This discussion was defined by bitter complaints from the delegates about sub-par book production quality as well as quantity, lack of distribution networks, and the apathy of government to intervene. Sellami Ahmed El Meki, President of the Mauritanian Publishers Association, was particularly vocal about the inability of publishing to impact his nation's socio-economic growth due to these deficits. With recognition as a serious industry, he argued, publishing would be in a position to attract great investment, but from "our own income rather than from external sources".

Elliot Agyare, President of Ghana's Book Publishers Association made the stand-out and lofty case for publishers to take themselves far more seriously as "gate-keepers of society", referencing the biblical concept of eminent men meeting at the gates of the city to discuss affairs of state. The gate-keeping role of publishers in African society needs, he argued, to be conceptualised and birthed.

Other (one could say somewhat deja vu) contributions came from, for example Mohammed Radi, Vice-Chair, African Publishers Network who advocated learning from the industry models of more advanced countries by joining international associations and establishing relationships with editors and publishers; the huge commercial value of book fairs; and the necessity for both economic and literary approaches to marketing books.

The key element of the 'socio-economic' discussion was for me its emphasis on government's need to measure the outputs of the creative industries and the urgency for data gathering and book sector statistics in Africa - hard data - without which our reports are mere anecdotes. An audience member who introduced the principle of output measurement spoke passionately: if African governments won't undertake data gathering, he argued, then publishers associations must. He finished by proposing that a call for systematic data and information collection about the publishing industry of each African country be recorded as a concrete and urgent action in the blue print, the Lagos Action Plan 2018 , that will emerge from the seminar. In support of this line of reasoning the moderator, Samuel Kolawole, MD, University Press Ibadan , closed the panel with the recognition that the total (and undermining) inability of publishers on the panel to articulate how their outputs impact specific Sustainable Development Goals of the 17 outlined by the UN, was a direct result of the lack of verifiable and quantifiable publishing data to hand.

And while the lack of formal distribution networks was mentioned repeatedly, no-one in this socio-economic panel spoke of poor road networks and the high cost of transportation and not until the Panel 3 discussion 'Bringing the Voice of African Writers to the World', would the subject be addressed by author, publisher and Ake festival convener, Lola Shoneyin, of unreliable postal system e.g. NIPOST in Nigeria.

Another omission was the golden opportunity for the African book trade represented by increasingly secure and reliable online payment systems in Nigeria. The country might normally be associated with cyber crime, but things are changing in the realm of electronic payments and this hope for the Nigerian book industry was not presented: perhaps because it is not yet universally understood.

My final point: on a socio-economic impact panel, why was there no mention of the taxation of books in some countries by way of debilitating tariffs of VAT and/or import duties, with VAT charges ranging from 14%-18%?

Stand-out speakers on this panel were Otunba Olayinka Lawal-Solarin of Litramed; Lily Nyariki, Bookshop Manager at Moi University in Kenya and an official of Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and the moderator, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, Chairman of Tanus Communications.

Otunba Olayinka Lawal-Solarin spoke passionately about banks being unwilling to fund the text book publishing sector because it is not perceived as a lucrative investment. He spoke of non-existent marketing mechanisms; of the corruption of government officials blighting the marketing of books to government; of the book policy of 1 book: 5 pupils which works out in reality as 1 book: 15 children. He lamented the impossibility of educating Nigerian children in the face of stifling book to child ratios. Lily Nyariki spoke of shortage of books across the whole of Africa, agreeing with Otunba Lawal-Solarin about the pupil to book ratios in Africa gravely compromising the quality of education of the African child.

Since Government is clearly not in a position to fund its own policy of 1 book: 5 children, Otunba Lawal-Solarin proposed that government transfer the cost of book provision as per the existing policy to the parents via a revised policy. The new policy would mandate parents to buy five core text books for their children resulting in a market for textbooks and enabling publishing to thrive. He had barely finished speaking when an audience member jumped out of his seat to make a terse rejoinder: "Parents cannot and should not bear the cost of the five books. That is for government to do."

The audience member was no doubt thinking about the increasing number of African governments now heavily taxing books and in this way taxing knowledge through debilitating tariffs, VAT and others with a devastating effect not only on the cost of educational book supplies and reading materials but on the cost of books generally. Retail prices are now reaching astronomical levels in some countries.

Lily Nyariki, (the only bookseller panellist, I believe), stated the obvious: without a reading culture, publishing is at risk of dying. It needed to be said in the case she was making for increased recognition for booksellers who are crucial to the educational system and a key link in the publishing chain. Publicists and literary journalists like myself are also an under-represented but important cadre of the book chain, so I was happy to hear Ms. Nyariki extend her argument to us, by making the case for strengthening each link in the book chain.

In a bid to differentiate the challenges faced by educational publishers from those faced by publishers of general and trade books, fiction and other creative writing, Ms. Nyariki further spelled out the key elements of educational publishing: developing, producing, distributing, disseminating and use. As part of her slide presentation, she spoke of unethical practices (did I see poor credit record of some booksellers one one of the slides?). The slide show traced the trajectory of books from source to end result covering the advantages and disadvantages of direct selling which she explained is prevalent in Africa. Nyariki's presentation was rich in specifics. She highlighted book distribution styles currently found on the continent, which are largely unclear but include monopolies and the free market model. Clearly aware of the all talk no action reputation of these conferences, she closed her speech with an offer to share ADEA's action plan that emerged from its own Abidjan conference, held in January this year, with stakeholders present at the IPA/NPA seminar and expressed the openness of ADEA to for relevant collaborations.

The highlight of the discussion was moderator Yemi Ogunbiyi repeatedly advocating taking a leaf from the Nollywood book and extolling Nollywood's independence. "Nollywood doesn't need government support!" he declared. "It's in fact, the other way round: it's government that's looking to the film industry! Why can't the book industry follow the Nollywood model?"

No-one on the panel seemed in a position to respond - perhaps due to lack of information about the Nollywood model? - but Elliot Agyare, President of the Ghana Publishers Association, this time speaking from the audience, dismissed the Nollywood model as being a totally different scenario. "Government is in charge of education", he stated firmly, "it is in charge of the provision of books for schools, government is not in charge of funding entertainment".

Other issues were addressed, including the underrepresentation of women in educational publishing and the need for diversity in publishing; teacher training and improved teaching materials; and promotion of the reading culture. What no-one mentioned is the new threat by some African governments to introduce and implement a policy of just one officially sanctioned textbook per subject and grade, thus ending the current situation of a multiplicity of books from a variety of publishing houses, competing in an open market. Why was there silence about this danger?

This was a colourful panel with Nigerian Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, co-founder of up and coming publisher, Cassava Republic, as moderator. Bakare-Yusuf, a petite woman with incredible energy, narrowed the focus of 'the world' to Africa, this part of the world. She did a wise thing: intra-African book trade, bounding with opportunities, is fraught with many logistical impediments to its success: among them getting books through customs, taxes and tariffs. Intra-African book trade is also dear to the heart of Lola Shoneyin, publisher and founder of Ouida Books and a panelist for the session. It must be seen, she declared, as a "huge opportunity", calling for analysis followed by specific and sustainable action toward significant revenue generation, action that will be driven by a coalition of serious actors on the continent.

But Akoss Ofori of Sub-Saharan Publishers and African Books Collective was the first to speak. She began with her concern about the deterioration of public library services, many of them without book acquisition funds, and argued for every country's government to distribute books in good quantities to libraries across their countries. Veteran Tanzanian publisher Walter Bgoya of Mkuki na Nyota Publishers, and Chairman of African Books Collective supported Ofori's position with a reference to the Norwegian government's policy of buying 1,000 copies of every title published in the country to give to its country's libraries. Regrettably neither of these two representatives of ABC spoke about another related topic: the activities of overseas book donation programmes, and their potential negative effects on the local book industries. There are serious pitfalls as libraries across the African continent increasingly rely on these book aid schemes in their hunger for books and to fill their empty - at best scanty - shelves.

Mrs. Ofori additionally made the case, supported vigorously by moderator Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, for reading in the mother tongue. This is an idea gaining increasing traction continent-wide (and overseas) and is strongly advocated and systematically carried out by caucuses of Africa's literary youth with The Jalada Collective of writers at the vanguard of the indigenous language movement. Bakare-Yusuf pointed to the capacity of mother tongue reading to exponentially expand the reading culture. She called for reaching the full diversity of ethnic groups that exist across Africa. Lola Shoneyin generated much hope and excitement about the expansion of the reading culture in Africa when she spoke of the Right to Write project which she manages and which has been supported by a generous grant from the European Union. Established writers of children's books will mentor emerging writers. The books that emerge will be translated into the relevant ethnic tongues. Mrs. Ofori insisted that publishers must respond to this new movement, not only through the provision of print copies of books but by creating digital books and digital libraries. Clearly, she was not focused on the considerable costs of developing digital content which would render digital libraries a pipe dream for small independent publishers with limited resources and who still largely dominate the African book industry. A dynamic and vocal publisher, Lola Shoneyin spoke of her partnership with a bank for the purpose of digitisation, which made far more sense to the audience and raised far more hope. She has undertaken a state-of-the art book project in partnership with Sterling Bank of Nigeria. Her team of social entrepreneurs will produce books in a variety of cutting-edge print and digital formats for marketing across the country in a bid to expand the reading culture.

The last take-away of value from this panel was from Wale Okediran, host of the pioneering Ebedi Writer's Residency, a former president of Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) and retired parliamentarian. Okediran advocated stage and screen adaptations of books to draw attention to the book and to generate a wider readership and book sales. He cited one of his own books as having seen a significant spike in sales during the making of the film adaptation, that is, even before the film's release. An informal relationship between Nollywood and the African book industry for screen adaptations of books is an attractive idea.

Surprisingly, not a single panel member addressed the issue of publishing education and professional training on the continent. When an audience member broached the need for formal training in the sector, for improved editorial content and production quality, the panel's response was so lame, I cannot even remember it.

What the panellists did do well was to engage in an interesting debate about parity between print and audio books. Moderator Bakare-Yusuf argued for the supremacy of print/the written word, making an articulate statement: "lack of the written word in Africa has disadvantaged Africans historically. The possession of it will restore the place of Africans in global written history."

With multiple award-winning debut novelist, Ayobami Adebayo, absent from the proceedings, this panel was moderated by Masennya Dikotla, CEO, Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy based in South Africa.

"Audio books are the new Netflix" said Ama Dadson of Akoo Books. She vaunted statistics for its market globally, up to $3billion, but was far less fired up about the statistics for the African market. I got the impression it was hard work selling audio books to the people of Africa though she insisted that mobile phone operators and influencers on social media were a powerful sales force. She expressed faith in what she was doing fuelled by the knowledge that her blind mother is a grateful beneficiary of the power of audio books to keep people reading even when they cannot. She would persevere.

Harry Hare of CIO East Africa, an IT Media company, talked boldly about 'disruption' of the kind spearheaded by Nigeria's Okada Books, 'the fastest growing mobile book reading app in Africa' reputedly. When Hare announced, "Let's stop talking about books, let's talk instead about content", my mind immediately went to the Panel 3 debate which had just taken place about the supremacy I want to see retained by the written word in conventional book form.

But Hare is a dynamic speaker. I listened as he disrupted, taking a counter-seminar position: "The reading culture is not low, people are reading more now. Publishers are struggling when they shouldn't be. They need to re-think their approaches to selling books".

Start with the user, he advocated, and then decide how best to channel content to them. People will read if they are served literature in the formats they prefer. Hare spoke energetically about the preference of millennials for digital content, but was unable to respond to a journalist from The Bookseller magazine who cut in from the audience to argue that print was just as popular as digital with millenials, providing data to prove his point. A four time TEDx speaker and one of 'Venture Africa's 40 African Innovators to Watch', Okechukwu Ofili colourful co-founder of Okada Books, spoke confidently, rattling off data to back his faith in an African future informed by digital books; boasting of currently 208,000 Okada users and fast growing user rates. Like Hare, he argued that it's untrue that people don't read: the problem is the serious distribution problem books have. So how can you get books to people across Africa, faster, efficiently? Answer: digital. Okada has made things far easy for writers to digitise books, he added. Okada Books is the technology of choice for writers with a niche appeal for selling their books. He supported Hare's position about youth preference for consuming data, he made a loud call, which got the audience laughing, for younger panelists and more youth representation in the audience at future seminars. Godwin Fiagbor, Africa Director for Educational Technology Solutions for Edify, called for digitising rural Africa and reaching school children in difficult areas world-wide by means of affordable offline technologies along the line of Okada Books.

With Okechukwu Ofili of Okada Books and Harry Hare of CIO East Africa dominating discourse, it was a highly engaging panel. Two clear, concise conclusions that I took away were: (1) Publishers need to trust digital and to push it as hard as print and at the same time. (2) With the help of IT experts to facilitate the transformation. African publishers must at least partly go digital using business models tailored to meet their needs.

Moderated by Folu Agoi, past President of Pen Nigeria, out of the six panels, this one meant the most to me. Why? Because the perception of political correctness as a stronghold to be overthrown, was a powerful selling point of Donald Trump's bid for the presidency of America and was supported in no small measure by white evangelical Christians across the country. And, shockingly to me, evangelicals right here in Africa. They are in fact a global demographic of fierce proponents of individualism, standing firmly by the anti-censorship position of Christian theology that exalts the dignity of the individual, rejecting censorship which it believes abrogates that dignity.

I wanted to understand the principles of the debate between freedom of speech and censorship/political correctness. I wanted to be able to envisage Trump's America, and a Trumpian world totally unshackled from the chains of censorship and to decide whether or not I like it.

As part of the opening of the discussion, Kristenn Einarsson, Chair of the International Publishers Association's Freedom to Publish Committee, recognised Reporters without Borders with great respect. The international human rights agency rates the adherence to freedom of speech of countries across the globe and publishes three different indexes annually of the best and worst countries in this regard. I was particularly struck by Mr. Einarsson exposure of government proposals for government-led educational book publishing as a subterfuge to control what children imbibe. The citing of an economic justification for taking charge of educational publishing, he argued, is always a lie of governments worldwide, a lie of authoritarianism that the Freedom to Publish Committee would continue to expose. He presented the mandate of the committee which is to advance the freedom to publish and to celebrate champions of freedom such as Zimbabwean news media baron Trevor Ncube, (Alpha Media Holdings) who won the International Publishers Association Freedom Prize in 2007. The prize was awarded for Ncube's fearlessness in journalism in a Zimbabwe groaning under the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. A major aim of the IPA's prize is to protect persecuted publishers by raising their global profile; a clearly successful strategy demonstrated by Trevor Ncube's presence on the panel. A commanding personality, Ncube regaled the audience with tales from his impressive life protesting and publishing honest news with his personal freedom constantly on the line.