At an international Conference in Abuja on “Language in Education” last year November, Nigeria’s Education Minister, Dr. Tunji Alausa, announced the scrapping of indigenous languages in Nigeria’s school curriculum. The reason he trumped off for his decision was poor performance in examinations like WAEC, NECO and JAMB. To many analysts, that decision was anything but revisionist and unconstitutional and was also perceived as another form of intellectual colonialism, if not educational imperialism. Or better still, the best metaphor for the Minister’s decision is a ‘cultural bomb,’ a term popularized by Ngugi wa Thiong’O, the late Kenyan literary General.
Let me illustrate. Imperialism is not just a mere slogan. It is real and it is palpable in content and form and in its methods and effects. Imperialism is the rule of consolidated finance capital usually aided by monopolistic and indigenous parasites who continue to rob all peasants in the remotest corners of our countries. If you are in doubt, see how the Nigerian government and many other African countries have now been mortgaged to IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organizations etc. Nigeria borrows almost on a daily basis. We hear of fantastic figures and Billions of Dollars every day yet the people are hungry and without power and shelter. It is three years of this regime but cast your eyes over the landscape of communities in the country and there you will encounter eloquent testimonies of the innocent poor who have lost their loved ones to avoidable acts of terror and are merely existing or descending into a lingering state of insecurity with its attendant ills not the least of which is economic retrogression. It seems clear to us that every day we are in motion but there is no movement.
Imperialism is total: it has economic, political, military, cultural and psychological consequences for all the peoples of the world including Nigeria. But mark my words: the Education Minister is one of the protagonists of that imperialist saga. And his actions and decisions, could only be understood as a relapse into that dismal era.
Now, let’s be clear on a point. The biggest weapon usually wielded by imperialist agents, like Nigeria’s Education Minister, is the cultural bomb. The effect of the cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their languages, in their names, in their environment, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. Another way of putting this is to say that by jettisoning our indigenous languages in favor of the English language, the Education Minister wants us Nigerians to see our past as a wasteland of non-achievement; and he wants us to distance ourselves from that wasteland. Why would any sensible African, for that matter, want us to identify only with a language that is far removed from us? Well, since Colonialism, imperialism and capitalism are twin brothers, I leave them here and turn attention to other issues of the day.
Let us begin with the English language. Before the incursion of the Europeans into various African states, there was a great linguistic diversity in many African states as indigenous languages like Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Tiv, Igala, Nupe, Ngas, Ibibio, Eggon, Berom etc had, already been in existence. In fact, in Nigeria there are about two hundred and fifty ethnic groups with a conservative estimate of about four hundred languages. Nigeria therefore is a multilingual speech community where diverse languages compete. But apart from the indigenous languages, there is also the presence of foreign languages (especially English) in Nigeria. In Nigeria therefore, English is an exo-language. An exo-language is that language which performs official and national functions. Thus, the English language performs both official and national functions at the level of Administration, Politics, Education, Trade, Commerce, Science and Technology. Most importantly, we must concede that in a multilingual society, functions are usually assigned to both the exo-language and indigenous languages. Thus, the various indigenous languages in Nigeria are used for interactional communication in their respective domains of operation. This explains why Hausa is spoken largely in Kano, Sokoto Kebbi etc, Igbo in Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Yoruba in Lagos, Ogun, Ondo and Osun states.
Again, the indigenous languages in Nigeria have also been categorized. For example, languages like Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba have been recognized as major languages and have been given priority in the development and promotion of Nigerian languages. It is for this reason that the educational policy in Nigeria, before Dr. Tunji Alausa, stipulates that the Nigerian child, in addition to his or her mother-tongue must acquire one of the three major languages. The handbook produced for corp- members by the NYSC is also written in these three major languages. Besides, the same policy on education insists that the early education of the Nigerian child should be in the indigenous mother- tongue languages (MT). In Nigeria, therefore, we have a language policy that promotes multilingualisrn. In countries like China, indigenous languages like Tibetan and Yi are used for early child education and other cognitive benefits before they are introduced to exo languages like Mandarin and Zhuang. Same could be said of Japan and South Korea. And this has produced better scientists and learning outcomes. Without doubt, the Minister’s decision to scrap indigenous languages in our school curriculum is preposterous and senseless.
Again, in terms of the participatory function of the English language, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended in 2010) is very explicit about the functions and roles of the English and indigenous languages. Section ninety-seven of the constitution reads:
The business of the House of assembly shall be conducted in English, but the house may in addition to English conduct the business of the House in one or more other languages spoken in the State as the. House may by resolution approve.
Turn wherever you may, there is enormous evidence to show the heroic value of preserving our mother tongues. As a matter of fact, the whole uncritical acceptance of English as the inevitable medium of instruction in our schools and colleges is misdirected and has no chance of advancing African values and culture. In other words, until we return to the use of Nigerian languages side by side with the English language, we would merely be pursuing a dead end, which can only lead to sterility, uncreativity and frustration.
It could be perceived that language is not just a means of communication, it is also a carrier of a people’s culture. But take note of this: language is connected to culture in three major ways. First, it is an aspect of culture—- one of the very many objects and institutions of culture. Second, language is an instrument of thought. It helps to concretize thought and also to explore, discover, extend and record the experiences in a culture. Third, language expresses culture. It is the only way by which the social experiences and values of a group of people are perceived and understood. If the Honorable Minister is truly an African (and there is no doubt he is) who knows the dignity of African values and norms, he may wish to rescind his decision. Otherwise, I fear that one day the Honorable Minister may also scrap Departments like African Studies and Performing Arts in Nigerian universities.
Besides, the Education Minister has also announced the establishment of a campus of the Coventry University in Nigeria under the Transnational Education (TNE) framework the aim of which is to keep Nigerian children at home while they receive a world-class UK education. This very policy is also asinine and it shows a willful incapacity of the Nigerian government to burnish its own universities up to international or ‘world-class’ standards. Needless to repeat that this is another neo-colonial policy and an extension of educational imperialism.
Furthermore, at another parley with JAMB in Abuja recently, the Education Minister pegged the minimum admission cut off at 150 for both public and private universities and 100 for polytechnics and monotechnics while colleges of education received complete exemption from UTME. The reason he advanced for this decision is the rigid/strict admission criteria which, according to him, is responsible for the millions of out-of-school children in the country. Again, this pronouncement is as ridiculous as it is a total debasement of the merit criterion usually associated with higher school training. Watch it everybody: some rules are so bizarre and so retrogressive that they must be broken if society is to break out of its historical lethargy and move forward. Are we celebrating mediocrity to the detriment of merit? Which land is this where leaders jump out of their beds and move straight to the media house to make personal pronouncements on vital issues like education without consulting the various stake holders in that sector?
The conclusion is that imperialists agents represented by Nigeria’s education Minister are profoundly alienated from the people and all their actions masks a grim reality: accept foreign theft (as aid) or death. However, the oppressed and the truly educated in our communities will stiffly resist this new form of intellectual colonialism. Finally, it is left to be said that language does not stand apart from experience but completely interpenetrates it. To put it differently, language is not merely a guide to social reality it also conditions all our thinking about social problems and processes. Today, scholars of language are all agreed that the world in which we live as humans is broadly similar and in many respects, it can be perceived similarly by individuals irrespective of linguistic differences. Indigenous languages are therefore creative and not destructive.
