Engaging Indigenous Languages In National Development

By

Attahiru Muazu Gusau

attamuazu@yahoo.com

It is no longer tenable to posit that the use of English language as the Official Language [OL] of Nigeria has solved the problems of equal access to knowledge, divisiveness and grounding poverty and underdevelopment. Conversely, it can be argued that English as OL and medium of instruction in schools has become a formidable and impenetrable barrier to access to knowledge and information to a great part of the Nigerian society by ostracizing the languages of the environment and disengaging them from the business of education.  This singular act of omission goes a long way in effectively undermining and stunting the growth and development of all the languages of the environment to a level of near incapacitation. The spiral effect of prioritising exoglossic languages against the languages of the environment is unmistakable: No Nigerian society has ever acculturated modern knowledge to its cultural and environmental context. Even to the south west that prides itself with producing the largest number of professors on the African continent, knowledge remains an imported foreign commodity accessible to only those that are baptised with the English language. What is troubling, however, is the meek acceptance of the status-quo as ideal and sufficient for our educational and developmental need.

 Ironically, recent statistics from NECO published on The Daily Trust Newspaper of Wednesday 17/3/2010 has shown that only 1.8% of the total candidates that sat for the examination passed the required five credits including English and Mathematics. That represents a total of 4223 out of 236,613 that sat for the exams. A staggering 98.2% failure! Even if other factors come into play in this recurrent annual show of shame, as indicated  by Sanusi Abubakar in his Monday column which was furnished with more sad statics, the impact of the language factor in the massive and the near total collapse of the educational sector have not been highlighted. It has become a taboo to talk of the role of indigenous languages in the question of education and national development. We all seem to always slavishly nod in approval of the lie of the sufficiency of English language despite the grim statistics to the contrary.  It is now clear we are living a lie. Our education has collapsed,” lamented Sanusi Abubakar .The Thursday 25/3/2010 editorial of Daily Trust put it simply as scandalous.

 The bigger scandal however is that all along we’ve been lying to ourselves and to others about the sufficiency of foreign exoglossic languages in addressing our educational and developmental problems. The truth, simply put, is that amidst all the contributing factors that led to this impasse of recurrent massive failure in examination, the language factor stands out as the most critical. Ironically it is the factor that we chose to deny. If we are not prepared to accept the fact that foreign languages cannot be sufficient for the educational needs of Nigeria, then the aspiration for a knowledge driven and modern society will remain a mirage to us. Our policy makers must therefore, of necessity, find a way of engaging and experimenting indigenous languages [particularly the regional Lingua Franca] as languages of instruction in at least some of our schools, thereby complimenting English language which still serves as the sole vector of knowledge in the country.

It is a big misperception to assume that fielding other languages as languages of instruction challenge the position of English as the nation’s official language. No, it doesn’t. Have we not been spending millions of dollars sending our students to small countries like Bulgaria, Romania and other non English speaking countries to study medicine and other courses? Why can’t that gesture be extended to our indigenous Lingua Franca?

  Recently, the nation’s elites t gathered in Kaduna to foster solutions to the problem of Almajirci, in an annual lecture organized by the Arewa Media Forum tagged ‘The Challenges of Almajirci and Child Destitution in the North’. With the hoax of the indispensability of the English language in the back of their minds, they failed fathom out any better solution than to integrate the Tsangaya system with the conventional western based Turanci or formal school system. Yet we all know from the annual statistics that this system has failed and is itself seriously crying out for salvation. The stake holders and participants pretend to be ignorant of the fact that the only inhibition to modern knowledge on the side of the Almajiri is the language of instruction and a little determination on the side of the elites and policy makers could see the Almajiri learning all sciences in his native tongue. The denial of the linguistic element in under development and particularly in the lingering apprehension of the average northerner about aspects of ‘western civilization’ and cultural values is one of the greatest crimes of the elites against the society. The longer we continue to deceive our selves concerning the sufficiency of English language the more our problems would be compounded.

 The same goes for the seemingly more literate southern part of the country. For all the beauty of the Yoruba culture and language and love for learning, the vehicle of transfer and domestication of knowledge have been effectively grounded by the  myth of the sufficiency of the English language and preservation of national unity. Ironically, the numerous researches conducted by the army of Yoruba professors who are actually more numerically more than Bulgarian professors, are recorded on the pages of history only as the unending blaze of glory of western civilization and ‘advanced’ European languages which, seen from the other eye further confirms the irrelevance of the Yoruba language. For instance, was ‘The Trial of Brother Jero’ a master piece of the Yoruba language or another feather on the hat of English language? Amidst the accolades for literary accomplishments it has therefore become necessary to pause and ask what the African man is celebrating- the demise of African languages or the supremacy of the western culture? It was said that Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was translated into 54 languages across the world. Sadly, I think no Nigerian language is included in the list. I have never seen a Hausa translation of the book at all! I may be wrong, however.

 Accepting the insufficiency and inefficiency of the English language for our developmental needs does not posit denying its advantages of bringing diverse people together, particularly in our kind of society, it is just awakening us to the responsibility of exploring other alternative that might compliment what we already have. The question here is: does the need for a unifying neutral language as an OL posit the automatic and eternal consignment of indigenous languages to oblivion? Do we as a multi lingual nation have any responsibility towards the development of our indigenous languages so that they can serve us better? Or, are we condemned by the reality of our nationhood to an eternal subjugation of the potentialities of our languages and cultural identities under the imposed domination of the colonialist’s cultures and languages? Is the nation antithetical to its segmented units or complimentary? Can the Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo and the more than 400 languages found in Nigeria develop in spite of English being the OL?

 While not trying to challenge the status quo of the nation state and the post colonial hybrid character as the best possible state of existence for the country it is very questionable whether the only guaranty for development is the use of English Language as the only language of instruction in our schools. The potentials of the indigenous languages for broad based mass literacy and knowledge acculturation have never been accessed much less exploited. There is thus the need for a proactive approach to the issue of development which must involve a sound linguistic policy that sees the utilization of indigenous languages as languages of instruction in our schools.

There is obviously the need to re arrange or set our priorities straight. We must accept that we have a responsibility of not only preserving individual cultural and linguistic identities but that for acculturation of knowledge and genuine progress and development we must have to utilize our indigenous languages in the enterprise of education. In this regard, the Nigerian language policy must be redirected towards improvement of indigenous languages and their proper utilization for the attainment of development goals. We must accept the potentials of indigenous languages for domestication of knowledge and broad based grass root reach as against the English Language. If English brings unity local dialects hold the key to development.

 According to Bambose, the principle of Nigerian educational language policy are based on, ‘equal opportunity to access to language of education; thorough grounding in the child’s own language; thorough mastery of English and bilingualism in two Nigerian languages.’ Equal opportunity to access to language of Instruction can only be enhanced when local dialects and particularly the Lingua Franca are competitively involved in the enterprise of education. Thorough grounding in child’s language is achievable only when education in indigenous language is allowed up to the tertiary levels and not restricted to the first three years of primary education. This way both the child and the language develop. Bilingualism is achieved when the Hausa child learns Yoruba not merely for mercantilist consideration but to be able to study Medicine in some Yoruba language university, or the Yoruba child learns Igbo to study modern Business in some Igbo language university, or the Igbo child learns Hausa to study Political science in some Hausa language university. With the English language in the background, but not interfering as language of instruction, both unity and development are achievable.

Attahiru Muazu Gusau

Secretary Gusau Educational Delopment Association [GEDA]

Ministry of Housing and Town Planning, Gusau