Rethinking Nigeria’s Mother Tongue Policy For Better Learning Outcomes

What a coincidence! The very crises that have brought Nigeria to STEM are not technical crises at all… not crises of not enough engineering, not enough mathematical modeling, not enough laboratory science … They are humanistic and social crises of meaning, of narrative, of identity and moral community.-G.S. Ibileye, Vice-Chancellor, Federal University of Lokoja.

This era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) required that the existing epistemic process be overwhelmed with that of Africans, as Africans are more humanistic and conscious of human interaction with seen and unseen realities than other sub-human races. There are over 6000 mother tongues in Africa. There is only One Human Race and the knowledge processes issuing forth from the humans should be inclusive and helpful for the existence of the race, not harmful to it. The languages spoken by humans are repositories of unexamined knowledge processes and Nigeria with over 500 languages should chart a course on how to harness such knowledge contents to mitigate the current danger of looming human extinction due to excessive, dehumanistic arsenals in the hands of the “wicked”. This includes harvesting humanistic knowledge contents and exploring the values of African languages.

All neuroscientists agree that the human brain works at barely 10% of its capacity and that every child is able to learn at least five languages at an early age, laying a strong foundation to allow tolerance, creativity, openness to others, innovation and peaceful behavior for a better humanity. Stopping wars, insurgency, greed, unending political turbulence are challenges that are nipped in the bud by a great dose of humanistic knowledge proactive. ‎And speaking ‎and creating narratives in the languages of the weaker ones to woo them to accept terms of governance and social contract that make them give their best in nation building like it is done in Ethiopia and closer to Nigeria, Chad.

The Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL) at its 28th Convocation, Induction of New Members and Investiture of Regular and Honorary Fellows, chaired by its President Prof. Andrew Haruna, and in which 46 new members were inducted and 10 Fellows were crowned, and Honorary Fellow was bestowed on the El-Kanemi of Borno, HRH Shehu of Borno, Humanistic Practice Award to TundeKelani and Distinguished Life Fellow to Professor Emeritus Femi Osofisan, appealed to the Federal Government of Nigeria to not abolish the Mother Tongue (MT) Policy but to re-design it and re-position it as “A Second‎Generation Mother Tongue Policy” so as to see it serve as “Path To Nation-Building” as it is seen in Ethiopia, Senegal, South Africa and Chad.

For Professor Imelda Udoh anchored her presentation on “The First Pathway To Nation-Building” MT draws attention to the mooring infrastructure of a nation like that stated by Prof. Ishaq Oloyede – cultural consciousness, linguistic heritage, functional literature consumption of the young ones from the homes where mother tongues are used, to ground them and induct them into human beings distinct from animals. Like mother tongue like mother suckling – very humanistic and resourceful; and leads to human optimization pathway in the labyrinth of pathways.

Professor Vicky Sylvester, who based her presentation on “Policy and Practice Mismatch”, Federal Government was ignoring the fulcrum of mother tongue practice as enunciated by UNESCO in 1953 − not as cultural idealism but as an intellectual boost for the young ones who must still face the colonial languages as well as the Nigerian pidgin. Hence the need to fund it so as to gratify the self esteem of the Nigerian child into well rounded adult. Developing contents in this age of AI could be very original and greatly universalisable if mother tongue practice is well planned. That is where Professor Yinusa Salami brings in what he calls epistemic order and pluriversalism− that is, no matter the number of mother tongues in Nigeria or Africa, their epistemic values and contents must be isolated and uploaded into a universal data base. That calls for research, and for the production of good curricula. It must be more than translation from European languages to the mother tongue or vise versa. Here linguists will tell you that the semantic unit of African proverbs or expressions cannot be translated word by word.

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Epistemic order could also generate semantic units specific to mother tongues and model, to be appreciated by universalization . Just like Prof. Muhammed Sulaiman Audu writes in his paper on Twi and Ga in Ghana. The Ghanaians have two well-developed languages to upload their own knowledge process, despite the official English in Ghana and the official French in Togo. Ga has helped to promote the peace between Ghanaians and Togolese but as evident in Aflao border. This seems not attainable in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad borders–Fulfude, Kanuri and Hausa seem on centrifugal drive. It is humanistic and social. How to bring them together for centripetal purposes beckons. At the induction ceremony, the EL-Kanemi spoke of 1500 years of existence, of museum and unconquered state. It should matter in nationhood building.

Ethiopia has official languages that are Ethiopian languages, one of which is Amharic which is dominant. It is expected that each of the official languages take care of its region of origin and educate its citizen along the local needs of Ethiopia, and that expectation to work at federal level must be the knowledge of Amharic – not federal character quota basis. Most people in British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Labrador, Alberta do not care about speaking French like in Canada where you must speak and write French and English to aspire to be a confederal worker in Ottawa. They prefer to stay and work in their provinces thereby localizing their development drive and keeping the provinces relevant and active. Unlike in Nigeria where people flock to the center Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Port Harcourt leaving or abandoning the rural areas to non-state actors.

In Ghana or Senegal, the idea of Town and Krom (it is a town, it is my ancestral home) make Twi and Wolof extremely relevant in the development of the rural areas, slow it may be though, it is not left to insurgents or Boko Haram-type of activities.

Nigeria, nay Africa needs a good dose of humanistic education that can upload the epistemic pathways embedded in mother tongues that drive Ubuntu philosophy – I am because you are.

As G.S. Ibileye said, Africa’s problem now and in the coming years is more of cohesion of humans and their environment than deep science and technology. “What does a camera see that a historian cannot name, what does a drone detect that a linguist cannot read… if the life of the spokesperson of the armed forces could not be preserved (Major General Rabe Abubakar), what exactly do we want five thousand cameras to do?” he said.

So in effect, the nation building process where inclusiveness and brotherhood counts and where insurgents are banished, re-design mother tongue policy to look like what it is in Ethiopia or Senegal.