Nigeria’s National Language Question: A Case For The English Language

This paper examines the issue of a national language question in Nigeria. The paper establishes that language is the vehicle
through which a society’s cultural ethos is transmitted, while, in return, society nurtures language through its sociopolitical, economic, and cultural groups. Language is a means of communication through which human beings share and
impart information to one another. The bottom line is that the English Language in Nigeria, more than any other indigenous
language, has for decades been a mobilizer of linguistic, political, technological, economic, cultural and religious potentials toward the creation of wealth, freedom, responsibility and common togetherness for the individual and for the nation. It is this
function of the English Language that makes it a veritable tool for national development in Nigeria. The paper found out that
some Nigerians are pushing for the adoption of an indigenous Nigerian language as against the continued use of the English
Language as a national language. The paper concludes that in the present situation in Nigeria, it is difficult to see how a local lingua franca can be adopted except by a process of gradualism. It is suggested that state governments should give serious thought to the inclusion of a major Nigerian language (other than the major language of the state) as compulsory subjects in the secondary school curriculum and by so doing continue to encourage our local languages, continue to research into them and make them as virile as possible while Nigeria for the time being concentrates more on matters of national development and the well-being of her citizenry