Academy inducts 46, demands mother tongue education

The Nigerian Academy of Letters has inducted 46 members, including a contemporary philosopher and senior pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Professor Oladele Balogun.

The academy also called for the decolonisation of Nigerian classrooms to promote the use of indigenous languages and cultural expressions as part of efforts to protect national identity.

According to a statement made available to The PUNCH on Monday, the Academy also inducted 11 regular Fellows and two distinguished Nigerians as honorary Fellows during its 28th convocation, induction of new members and investiture of regular and honorary Fellows ceremony in Lagos on Thursday.

Speaking on the theme of the convocation lecture, “Mother Tongue Education Policy and the Path to Nation-Building”, the President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Prof Andrew Haruna, urged the federal government and sub-national governments to prioritise indigenous languages for national identity and development.

Haruna described the neglect of mother tongue education as a major threat to Nigeria’s national identity, intellectual development and nation-building efforts.

Haruna called for the decolonisation of Nigerian classrooms, arguing that the country had for decades attempted to build a nation using “borrowed linguistic tools”.

“When a child is forced to master a foreign language before understanding the concept being taught, we do not merely delay learning, we fracture their identity,” he said.

In his remarks, Balogun, who is also the Special Assistant to Pastor Enoch Adeboye on Administration, warned that Nigerian indigenous languages might go into extinction if parents, scholars and the government failed to take deliberate steps to promote their use among younger generations.

He said the declining use of mother tongues was threatening the preservation of the country’s culture and values, adding that the responsibility for reviving indigenous languages rested on everyone, including parents who, he noted, were increasingly raising children who could barely communicate in their native languages.

“We are not devoting more time to all these indigenous languages, and I believe that the time has come now for us to do that, so that all these languages are not going to extinction,” he said.

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According to him, the situation was particularly worrying among Nigerians who sent their children abroad for education, as many of such children grew up without adequate knowledge of their parents’ languages and cultural expressions.

He also faulted the country’s approach to policy implementation, saying Nigeria had enough laws, policies and institutional structures but often failed to translate them into meaningful action.

Also speaking, the guest lecturer, Prof Imelda Udoh, called for the adoption of a well-planned mother tongue-based multilingual education policy, saying the language through which a child first learns was critical to learning, inclusion, national identity and nation-building.

According to her, children learn more effectively when they are initially taught in a language they understand, while English and other languages can be systematically introduced from a strong first-language foundation.

Udoh added, “Nation-building begins with the language through which a child first learns to think, read and belong. Children must learn English, but they should not be required to study every subject in it before they have sufficient proficiency to understand.”

She noted that investments in education infrastructure, curriculum, teacher quality and technology would have a limited impact if children could not understand the language in which they were taught.

Giving a breakdown of the inductees, Haruna said the Academy admitted 46 members, 11 regular Fellows and two distinguished Nigerians as honorary Fellows.

He added that the regular Fellows include Prof Remi-Raji Oyelade, Prof Nosa Owens-Ibie and Prof Gbenga Solomon Ibiloye, among others.

The NAL president also disclosed that the Shehu of Borno and University of Lagos Chancellor, Abubakar El-Kanemi, and Prof Ephraim Lucas were inducted as honorary Fellows.

He also noted that renowned filmmaker Tunde Kelani received the NAL Award of Excellence in Humanistic Practice, while Prof Emeritus Femi Osofisan received the Distinguished Life Fellowship Award.