By Olubusuyi Adenipekun
On Tuesday last week, some of the nation’s renowned language professionals and education stakeholders gathered in Abuja to discuss the procedure and modalities for  the development of a national language policy for Nigeria.

The event, which was organised by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council  was attended by the Minister of Education, Prof. (Mrs) Ruqayyatu Rufa’i (OON), the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Prof. Oladapo Afolabi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Arabic Language Village, Prof. Tijanni Miskail and his counterpart at the Nigeria French Language Village, Prof. S.O. Aje.

Others are Prof. Munzali Jibril (OFR), former Executive Secretary of NUC, Prof. Aliru Anfani, Sir Ralph Epeh, a renowned publisher as well as representatives of international development partners.

The Executive Secretary of NERDC, Prof. Godswill Obioma said the roundtable became necessary because the multiplicity of languages in the country demands that there should be a national language policy that  will spell out a medium of communication acceptable to all the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria.

Although Nigeria has a policy of instruction in schools which stipulates that the child should be taught in the mother tongue or the language of his or her  immediate environment for the first three years of primary schooling, Obioma said Nigeria still needs a national language policy, adding that the roundtable was meant to draw a platform upon which the kernel of the development of the language policy will rest.

The Professor of Mathematics Education told the gathering that NERDC carried out a research about two years ago when it came up with a language map that identified the existence of about 500 languages in Nigeria, explaining that this language research finding will be a good reference point for the efforts at drawing the content and structure of the national language policy.

On her part, the Minister of Education said although Nigeria has some agencies whose statutory mandates relate to the development of languages, yet the country lacks a wholesome and coordinated national language policy.

Prof. Rufa’i disclosed further that the present policy of instruction in schools poses the challenge of developing these languages for instructional purposes, building the quality of teachers and updating the teacher education programmes in line with these policy provisions, explaining that a national language policy will definitely enhance the actualisation of these ideals.

She gave kudos to NERDC for executing some projects in language development such as the development of orthographies of 35 Nigerian languages, development of curricula for Nine Network Languages at the basic and senior secondary education levels, development of language textbooks and other instructional materials and the development of bilingual dictionaries including English-Hausa, English-Igbo and English-Yoruba for basic education.

In his keynote address titled: “Developing A National Language Policy for Nigeria: The Imperatives,” Prof. Munzali Jibril said that there is research evidence suggesting that among some members of the elite, up to 20% of them do not speak their languages to their children in their mother tongue, with the children speaking only English and that small languages are being abandoned in favour of major ones owing to urbanization and the depletion of village populations.

Explaining the need for a new language policy, Prof Jibril said that academic underachievement in Nigeria is directly traceable to the failure of students to comprehend what they are taught owing to linguistic deficiencies, adding that the new language policy should aim at raising the level of academic achievement by teaching the Nigerian children through their mother tongue up to the end of JSS and the promotion, preservation and development of all Nigerian languages.

He recommends that the Federal Government should declare all Nigerian languages as national cultural treasures which should be developed, preserved and promoted and that it should also go into dialogue with state governments, PTAs and other stakeholders in order to secure consensus on the need for the mother tongue to be used as the medium of instruction for the first nine years of education.

The roundtable, which was attended by about 115 participants, including top officials of the Federal and State Ministries of Education, Information and Communications Ministry Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Universities, Colleges of Education as well as members of the Linguistic Association of Nigeria, was thereafter divided into six  syndicate groups discussion, in line with the six geo-political zones of the country. Each of these groups subsequently made a presentation of their decisions after which a national technical team was constituted which will soon be inaugurated.

At the end of the roundtable a communique was issued which recommends that the national and state Houses of Assembly should implement the provisions of the 1999 constitution that stipulates the use of English, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo at the Federal level, and English and other national languages at the state level.

It also recommends that a blueprint for the process of  formulating a sustainable and all-inclusive language policy for Nigeria should be developed and that NERDC should ensure that all the languages which have an estimated number of one million or more speakers have an orthography, a grammar, a dictionary and a full complement of textbooks.

The Federal Government, says the communique, should also track the performance of the policy when it comes into operation.