Igbo Women Assembly marks Mother Tongue Day, embarks on aggressive campaign to promote, sustain Igbo language, culture

Mother Tongue Day, observed February 21 of every years is devoted to promoting language of indigenous people of the world.

Most important was the prediction 10 years ago that Igbo language will go into extinction in 25 years’ time. No wonder Igbo Women Assembly has risen up to do everything possible to ensure that the infamous prediction fails woefully.

The group on February 21, 2023 gathered at Ajao Estate, to celebrate this year’s Mother Tongue Day, to harp on the significance of the day and also proffer solutions towards ensuring sustainability of the Igbo language and culture.

Chairperson of Igbo Women Assembly, Chief (Mrs) Nneka Chimezie, while speaking to the media said “February 21 every year, the United Nations celebrates Mother Tongue. It is called United Nations’ Mother Tongue Day. And we join the rest of the world to also celebrate our own language which is Igbo language.

“To celebrate it, we do call for press conference like this to also tell our brothers and sisters the need for us to promote our language especially in our homes, because even the United Nations has come out to say that in 25 years Igbo language will go into extinction, and it has been 10 years that prediction was made and from all indication and from our own investigation, it appears what they are saying is real because in most of our homes, many parents speak English language for their children and we tried to find out why,” Chimezie stated.

She decried a situation whereby a people have literally jettisoned their language for the foreign one. “Even we, we can speak our language and also speak English, so why do they think that their own language which is their own identity is not important for them to learn. I believe that your own language is even more important than any other language, no matter whatever you want to achieve with another language, your language is more important because wherever you are, if you feel threatened you go back home, so if you go back home, are you coming home with another person’s language, I don’t really understand it.

She tried to fathom out the reason people abandon their language. “From our findings we now understand that it is simply a misplaced priority, they just want to belong. So we are trying to tell them that there is nothing wrong with you teaching your child your language and then also learning English language. We all understand that English language is important because it is our lingua franca, our general language in Nigeria because we use it to communicate with other tribes that cannot understand our own language, otherwise, even, if you go to China, they study with their language, their technology, they develop with their own language. but sometimes the Igbos feel inferior, they think if you don’t speak English you are not educated, you are not wise, I don’t really know.”

She insisted that Igbo language is in no way inferior to the foreign languages “We want to make them understand that we don’t need to be inferior to anything, you owe nobody any explanation whatsoever why you are speaking your language.”

On what the group is doing in concrete terms to realize the objective of promoting Igbo language and culture, Lolo Chimezie said, “Well just as we are doing now, we call press conferences, we have also registered a school; we called it Igbo Women Assembly Igbo Language and Culture School, where we teach our children Igbo language and culture. It is not just the language, the culture also because, yes, the language gave birth to the culture and the rest of it, so when the language is going, the culture is also going. So we teach the language and the culture.

“And we want any Igbo Child irrespective of where he is born, where he lives to have access to this language. We have started with Lagos State, we have opened about seven schools right now, and before the end of this year, I think we are going to open like 10,” Chimezie disclosed.

She stated that the children are expected to pay a stipend to get registered, “It is not free as it were, we pay stipend so that we have to maintain the school, we don’t want it to run as charity. We want it to stand as a school. If you can take your child to the regular school and pay school fees, why not? And we are not forcing anybody, if you value the language, if you think it is something your children should have, you should be able to pay a little, we are not charging much because if we base it on charity, if the person sponsoring us stops sponsoring us the school will die, so we say you pay so that we can maintain the teachers. It is a registered school, it is an institution on its own; it is an annex of Igbo Women Assembly.”

Speaking enumerated the challenges being face by the group, to include sponsorship, “We want people that could help us, we want to build a secretariat, we want to train about 100 teachers, we don’t have much of Igbo teachers, so that we can have enough teachers, so we want people to come and sponsor. We want a secretariat and a school, where we will be lecturing, maybe people that do not have enough qualification to go to university, we can train them for elementary, we also need a bus for coordinators to move round to monitor the schools, these are some of the challenges.

Mazi Chigozie Bright Nnabuihe, who teaches Igbo language at the University of Lagos, on his part, stated that the relevance in the celebration of Mother Tongue Day is embedded in identity preservation. He said “The foremost culture that anyone has is his language, it is with the language you describe every other thing. And it is said by Socrates that one understands oneself best in his own language, and one expresses himself best in his own language. Whatever you taught the child in his own language, it will get internalized to the extent that, the child would be the child whom he is, and then he would be nurtured much better to mature as a better reasonable adult who would hardly deviate from the norm he was taught from childhood.

“Yes, you have people who are violent today, who taught them? You have those who have delight in killing, who taught them? By the time you teach a child, do not kill, do not steal, don’t do what your parents will not like, then they grow with some fear, and before you do things as you grow up, you will reason, how will my father see this, how will my mother feel when she hears this? Because you know that whatever happens, Igbo will tell you onye ije anaghi ato na’ma meaning a sojourner must surely go home, east or west, north or south, home is the best. So for one to know himself, for one to be well nurtured the language is of utmost importance,” Nnabuihe stated.

Ezenwaka John-Paul, a businessman and Chairman of Chairmen, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Lagos Chapter who was also the chairman of the occasion described the initiative as wonderful “The initiative is a very wonderful one, for us we would always strive to make sure that the Igbo language didn’t go into extinction. I am impressed and that is why anytime they call me I will always try my best to come and support them in any way I can because they are doing a wonderful job.”

Advising his Igbo brothers and sisters especially those in Lagos concerning the language, Ezenwaka said, “Charity, they say, begins at home. Every Igbo person should make sure that every discussion, every conversation, especially in the house, people should go back to the basis, speak Igbo to your children, speak Igbo to your wife and those around you that are Igbos, and let us minimize this constant use of English language, it will go a long way.”