Worried by the removal of Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa, other indigenous languages, from the new school curriculum, the publisher of the Yoruba Tooto weekly newspaper, Mr Kunle Babarinde, has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to rescind the policy and restore the three major languages to the school curriculum.
Babarinde appealed at a press briefing held yesterday at the Meiran, headquarters of the newspaper, in Lagos, urging President Tinubu’s intervention to save Yoruba and the other languages from going extinct.
The publisher explained that the open appeal through the press became necessary after he had fruitlessly written letters to President Bola Tinubu; Senate President Godswill Akpabio; Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas, and all governors in the South-West, as well as the co-chairman of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria (NCTRN), Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi (Ojaja II) and other prominent Obas in Yorubaland.
‘Of all the letters that I have written to these important personalities and eminent Nigerians, the only response I received was from the Sultan of Sokoto, while others are yet to respond to my letters,’ Babarinde said.
The publisher noted that indigenous languages are tools for cultural identity and the promotion of values, without which no country can truly develop or make meaningful progress.
‘Language is a living creature that dies when it is not used. As a stakeholder and publisher of a Yoruba weekly magazine, I am not fighting only for the restoration of the Yoruba language, but for all three languages, Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo, to be included in the school curriculum.
‘All three languages have been removed from the current school curriculum, both in primary and secondary schools and what that portends is that the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has decided to return us to slavery.
‘A people’s language is the totality of their being, and once the language dies, then every other thing, including culture, tradition and values, is gone.
‘Therefore, I am not only seeking the restoration of the three major languages to the school curriculum alone, but I am also using this opportunity to appeal to President Bola Tinubu to make the languages compulsory for admission into tertiary institutions,’ he said.
‘Job loss is imminent for the teachers of indigenous languages in Nigeria. The teachers are not happy with the proposed plan of the Federal Government to remove the languages from the curriculum, a development they said could make them redundant or out of a job.’
Other stakeholders at the media briefing include a former chairman of the Egbe Akomolede Yoruba, Lagos State chapter, Mrs Olaitan Zainab Olaide, who also urged all Yoruba monarchs to raise their voices against the proposed removal of the Yoruba and other languages from the school curriculum.
Olaide said: ‘Our language remains the only heritage that gives us the identity and respect we have as a race. So, our traditional rulers in Yoruba land must rise and raise their voices against the removal of Yoruba language from the current school curriculum,’ she said.
Other members of the Yoruba Tooto Multipurpose Cooperative Society present at the conference included the Lagos State chairman, Olabode Oyeniyi, Mrs Bunmi Adegoke and Mrs Bosede Ariyo, among others.