Ibrahim Suleiman
Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria has appealed to the federal government to expand the National Institute of Nigerian Languages (NINLAN) to reflect the clusters of Nigerian Languages across the six geopolitical zones to foster national unity.
The university appealed in a communiqué of the International Conference on African Indigenous Languages which was issued to newsmen on Sunday in Zaria.
The communiqué was jointly signed by Prof. Salisu Garba, the conference’s organizing committee chairman and Mal Abubakar-Sarki Muhammad Secretary, communiqué Committee.
The communiqué noted that the expansion of the National Institute of Nigerian Languages would foster national unity through language understanding, promote linguistic diversity and enhance language education and research.
It enjoins Institutions of higher learning to create and or reinvigorate centres for translation studies, especially into and from Nigerian Languages.
It added that the centres would strengthen the translation of scientific, technological, cultural and other developmental materials and literature into Nigerian Languages for better teaching and learning.
It further calls for immediate removal from the JAMB brochure Literature in English as a prerequisite for admission into UTME B. A (Hons) Hausa as it obtains with other Nigerian Language programmes.
The communiqué commends the Nnamdi Azikwe University Awka, South East, University of Ibadan and other Universities in South West for adopting Igbo and Yoruba languages as part of general studies courses.
It, therefore, calls on universities in Northern Nigeria to adopt the Hausa Language as part of general studies.
It urges traditional rulers and institutions as the custodians of Indigenous languages and cultures to use their indigenous languages at official functions;
Similarly it enjoins parents and guardians to speak their indigenous languages to their children and wards as part of the efforts to address language endangerment.
The communiqué said the conference unanimously nominates and approves an interim committee for the resuscitation of Hausa Studies professional association.