All the governors of Igbo states, many of whom attended the workshop, were mandated to ensure that Igbo becomes a compulsory subject in schools in the affected states, from primary to tertiary. Ndigbo in the Diaspora as well were equally to be persuaded to speak Igbo to their children at home, and let them learn English or other foreign languages in school. Nollywood actors were to be persuaded to act Igbo films in Igbo, irrespective of differences in dialect, and to avoid importing into Igbo films, cultures that, often, were alien to Igbo culture.
It is doubtful that all these efforts and recommendations went any further. Much later, following the wanton repetitive killings of Ndigbo in Northern Nigeria, some aggrieved Igbo youths made reprisal attacks on Northerners at Nkpor junction and some other areas. They mounted roadblocks and screened vehicles for Northerners. The basis of screening was the ability to understand and speak Igbo. It was a disaster that a few Igbo youths were killed needlessly, because they either did not understand or could not speak Igbo fluently; they were mistaken for Northerners seeking camouflage. This, to some extent, became an eye opener to many, since the trend of shunning “vernacular” is hardly known to Hausa, Yoruba, and quite a few other languages among so many in Nigeria. THE GENESIS: PERSECUTION AND MARGINALISATION.
The other face of a typical Igbo is that he will proudly communicate freely and fluently in Hausa, Yoruba and other tongues in public, but rarely in Igbo. We often try to be more native than our native hosts, but hostile to our very own native identity. Are we then ashamed of being Igbo? I do not think so; it would appear, in recent times that the problem is security and the fear of marginalisation and persecution. Initially, it was an ego element in trying to prove or establish success having proved quite adept in relating excellently with the English-speaking colonialists.
Either way, this tends to create great disadvantage to Ndigbo in the many climes worldwide where they even dominate, since they are often in reality believed to be in the minority where they are actually in the majority. This confers a loser status on Igbo which invariably nurtures persecution and marginalisation, because life is a virtual game of numbers. PROBLEMS Today, few Igbo children, teenagers and youth can speak even a word of Igbo; many can understand reasonably but cannot speak; most neither understand nor speak. Where then lies the veracity and future of Igbo as a people, a culture, a community, tribe, nation or ethnic group?
This imposes a fatal verdict, that Igbo language is fast becoming extinct, and may vanish in a few generations to come, with it our rich cultural heritage and all its enviable rich values. This is a factual threat which appears not to bother the governors and governments of Igbo states in Nigeria, and the entire Igbo nation both at home and in the Diaspora. When we were in the lower primary school in the late ‘50s, we read Igbo books. I often vividly remember a sentence in one of the readers “Okeke talu ose oji, owe fuo ya ufu nke ukuu, owe da na ana tie nkpu.” This is history.
Today, in school, Igbo children fail Igbo while some Hausa, Yoruba and others pass it as a subject. Ndigbo have gradually metamorphosed to a class conscious people, though I doubt if they can be more so than the Yoruba of Nigeria, from whom Ndigbo have copied several aberrations to our rich culture (such as classy weddings, and expensive funerals with aso ebi, uniformed dressed).
Yet, the Yoruba, as proud as they can be, often arrogant, have maintained the integrity of their language and culture across borders of education, civilisation, and wealth. Igbo parents, even the unschooled erroneously think that the way to belong to a high social class is to speak English, even when they fumble with grammar and tenses, or even when an Igbo born recipient or listener cannot comprehend; and these are passed on to our children; our successors and future generations.
Cadanre is not the author if this but:
http://sunnewsonline.com/new/specials/education-review/vanishing-igbo-and-ndigbo/
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