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<div class="gmail-post-single-title"><h1 class="entry-title">Lagos language law: giving federalism a soul</h1></div> </header>
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<a class="gmail-url gmail-fn gmail-n" href="http://thenationonlineng.net/author/rilwan/">Ropo Sekoni</a>
</span></span><span class="gmail-posted-on gmail-thenation-meta-item gmail-thenation-icon-calendar">On: <time class="entry-date gmail-published" datetime="2018-02-25T00:00:00+00:00">February 25, 2018</time></span><span class="gmail-cat-links gmail-thenation-meta-item gmail-thenation-icon-category"> In: <a href="http://thenationonlineng.net/category/ropo-sekoni/" rel="category tag">Ropo Sekoni</a></span> </div>
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<div class="gmail-addtoany_share_save_container gmail-addtoany_content_top"><div class="gmail-a2a_kit gmail-a2a_kit_size_32 gmail-addtoany_list" style="line-height:32px"><a class="gmail-a2a_button_facebook" href="http://thenationonlineng.net/#facebook" title="Facebook" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span class="gmail-a2a_svg gmail-a2a_s__default gmail-a2a_s_facebook" style="background-color:rgb(59,89,152)"></span><span class="gmail-a2a_label">Facebook</span></a><a class="gmail-a2a_button_twitter" href="http://thenationonlineng.net/#twitter" title="Twitter" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span class="gmail-a2a_svg gmail-a2a_s__default gmail-a2a_s_twitter" style="background-color:rgb(85,172,238)"></span><span class="gmail-a2a_label">Twitter</span></a><a class="gmail-a2a_button_google_plus" href="http://thenationonlineng.net/#google_plus" title="Google+" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span class="gmail-a2a_svg gmail-a2a_s__default gmail-a2a_s_google_plus" style="background-color:rgb(221,75,57)"></span><span class="gmail-a2a_label">Google+</span></a><a class="gmail-a2a_button_pinterest" href="http://thenationonlineng.net/#pinterest" title="Pinterest" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span class="gmail-a2a_svg gmail-a2a_s__default gmail-a2a_s_pinterest" style="background-color:rgb(189,8,28)"></span><span class="gmail-a2a_label">Pinterest</span></a><a class="gmail-a2a_button_linkedin" href="http://thenationonlineng.net/#linkedin" title="LinkedIn" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span class="gmail-a2a_svg gmail-a2a_s__default gmail-a2a_s_linkedin" style="background-color:rgb(0,123,181)"></span><span class="gmail-a2a_label">LinkedIn</span></a><a class="gmail-a2a_button_whatsapp" href="http://thenationonlineng.net/#whatsapp" title="WhatsApp" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span class="gmail-a2a_svg gmail-a2a_s__default gmail-a2a_s_whatsapp" style="background-color:rgb(18,175,10)"></span><span class="gmail-a2a_label">WhatsApp</span></a></div></div><p><em><strong>If
Nigeria’s most cosmopolitan state can see the wisdom in encouraging
children to learn in their mother tongue, other Yoruba states have no
reason not to borrow a leaf from the Lagos State government.</strong></em></p>
<p><em>Today’s piece is dedicated to the memory of Akinwumi Isola, a man
of high knowledge and culture who devoted a great deal of his
intellectual energy to promotion of learning that takes advantage of the
role of mother tongue and other languages in the acquisition of
knowledge in a modern world that has provided so much to facilitate
bilingual and multilingual education in a multicultural world.</em><br>
<em>Every two weeks, one of the world’s languages disappears, along with
the human history and cultural heritage that accompany it….A language
is far more than a means of communication; it is the very condition of
our humanity. Our values, our beliefs and our identity are embedded
within it….It is through language that we transmit our experiences, our
traditions and our knowledge. The diversity of languages reflects the
incontestable wealth of our imaginations and ways of life.—UNESCO
Director-General Audrey Azouulay at the 2018 Mother Language Day: Mother
Language Day with the theme “Linguistic Diversity and Multilingualism
Count for Sustainable Development.”</em></p>
<p>The recent signing of the Lagos State Yoruba Language Preservation
and Promotion Law (LSYLPPL) calls for congratulations to both the
legislature and the governor of the state. The law has been long in
coming but it is gratifying that it has come before self-imposed
cultural anomie comes to the state because of the erosion of cultural
values and identity in a state that has become a laboratory for
multicultural literacy in the country. Lagos State is one state that has
sacrificed so much of its resources and identity for the unity of
Nigeria, having served first as a political capital of the country and
ever since as the country’s commercial and cultural capital. Enacting a
law that can sustain the state’s identity, improve cognitive development
of its youth, create a pedagogy that nurtures innovativeness while also
developing a huge cultural economy in the state is a welcome
development.</p>
<p>LSYLPPL has come to address many educational practices in the state
that hitherto had been driven by misconceptions birthed and nurtured by
parents under the influence of ungrounded theories about the role of
mother tongue learning in academic achievement and confidence building
of the child. Governments in a state comprising Yoruba-speaking Lagos
Island, Badagry, Epe, Ikeja, and a huge population of people from other
parts of Nigeria who have chosen to make Lagos State their home have
responsibility to promote bilingual literacy. For long, governments in
the state have had to focus on other pressing problems: making sure all
children can attend school during the day rather than in the afternoon;
providing adequate learning infrastructure for millions of children of
school age; training and retraining of teachers; and increasing the
number of schools in a city-state with a population estimated to be
about 20 million. It is commendable that LSYLPPL has come at a time that
physical infrastructure has stabilised in the state, after many years
of positive intervention by various governments in the state.</p><div class="gmail-phpPMt9N">
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<p>Lagosians have for too long condoned or ignored parents’
misconception that denying children opportunity to use their mother
tongue in school is a primitive thing that has no benefit. To many
parents, restricting their children to use only English in school and at
home is not only a sign of sophistication but also a means of preparing
such children for a life of eminent success, which parents erroneously
believe can be aborted if such children learn in their mother tongue.
While private schools may get away with this untested theory that grew
largely among illiterate parents and parents who are first-generation
middle-class members in a social and economic context in which their
academic credentials have given them noticeable social mobility, public
education should not be encouraged to do so. What the new law has done
is to de-program parents and guardians who have chosen the wrong route
of educating a child in a post-colonial country like Nigeria. It is
cheering that the new law has come to rescue children from problems of
access, ease and quality of learning, general cognitive development, and
academic achievement of children in Lagos State. This is the kind of
law that should be emulated by other states across the federation.</p>
<p>With signing of a law that encourages teaching and learning in mother
tongue (L1) without any prejudice to acquiring simultaneously knowledge
of and in L2 and L3 in multilingual and multicultural Nigerian
federation, Lagos State government has another feather to its nest of
problem solving governance. This is a good complement or reinforcement
of the National Language Policy: ensuring that children acquire literacy
in their mother tongue, one other Nigerian language in addition to
English as the lingua franca. Such policy is in sync with language in
education policy in communities that are multilingual: Canada, Belgium,
Singapore, Switzerland, Nicaragua, Scotland, and many others. Nobody can
thrive in the EU today without being bilingual. Bilingual or
multilingual education in Hausa, Arabic, and English had existed in most
of the states in the North since the amalgamation of Nigeria.</p>
<p>Similarly, most of upper and middle-class people in the old Western
Region and Lagos studied under the model of bilingual education. For
example, most of the people who have been stellar performers in
knowledge-driven careers in the Yoruba region of Nigeria, like their
counterparts in other regions: the father of Nigeria’s decolonization,
Herbert Macaulay, top politicians like Obafemi Awolowo, Ladoke Akintola,
top civil servants like Simeon Adebo, Tejumade Alakija, Nigeria’s only
Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, and other stellar writers: Akinwumi Isola,
Femi Osofisan, Niyi Osundare, Daniel Fagunwa, and top academics/vice
chancellors like Hezekiah Oluwasanmi, Ifedayo Oladapo, Ojetunji
Aboyade, Oladipupo Akinkugbe, and all recipients of National Merit
Awards in Western Nigeria, Sylvester Adegoke, J.F.A. Ade-Ajayi, and
many top achievers within and outside Nigeria, too numerous to mention
in this short essay, are products of bilingual or multilingual
education. The theory that it is when students do none of their learning
in L1 that they can achieve is patently false. It is thus laudable that
Lagos State government has chosen to take the bull by the horn.</p>
<p>As expected, criticisms of the law have started to grow within the
few days of the governor’s signing of the legislation and should be
expected to grow further. As mordant as such criticisms may be, it is
important for the state’s governor and legislature to rest assured that
they have courageously thought outside the box of unplanned monolingual
learning in a growing ethos of local and global multilingualism. Parents
and guardians are certainly going to worry about the requirement for a
Credit in Yoruba for admission to Lagos State’s higher education
institutions. Such parents do not need to call for an end to the law
because of this requirement. All they need to do is to appeal to the
government to delay enforcement of that item for three years during
which students currently in JSS3 can enrol for Immersion Yoruba course
for the next three years, if their preference for tertiary education is
for Lagos state institutions.</p>
<p>With the Lagos State Yoruba Language Preservation and Promotion Law,
the government of the state is a trailblazer for other states in Western
Nigeria interested in saving their language, culture, values, and
identity while connecting their learning to global civilization via
English. The government of Lagos State should be proud of its prescience
in respect of disappearance of languages every two weeks, acknowledged
by the UNESCO a few days ago. It is also fitting that the law was ready
for signing before the BBC took a bold step to make sure that at least
three Nigerian languages: Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba are promoted through
such a global news network.</p>
<p>Certainly, citizens who have gotten used to teaching and learning
only in L2 need to make major adjustments, just like their children and
wards who have been victims of such choice by their parents in the past.
And the government of Lagos State ought to do its best to make the
transition smooth for those currently experiencing a philosophy and
practice of education that shouldn’t have occurred in any part of
post-colonial Nigeria. If Nigeria’s most cosmopolitan state can see the
wisdom in encouraging children to learn in their mother tongue, other
Yoruba states have no reason not to borrow a leaf from the Lagos State
government. Congratulations to the government of Lagos State.</p></div></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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