Professor Ogbonna Onuoha is the Executive Director of the National Institute for Nigerian Languages (NINLAN). In this interview with EMMANUEL IFEANYI, he speaks about ongoing efforts in developing Nigerian languages, benefits associated with it, and the institute’s efforts to make Nigeria an envy of all

NINLAN is 32 already, but the vast land is still untouched. What’s happening?
We have been doing the best we can. We have 209.5 hectares of land. And it may interest you to know that since we started, we’ve not received a takeoff grant. If we’d received it, we would have gone far. We’re 32 years old today, but when you look at how things are, you may think we’re toddlers. There was some discouragement that we have been managing. However, we cannot fail to appreciate all the current obvious efforts to make us better.

Is the patronage of Nigerian languages improving?
I must say a very big yes to that question. On the matriculation train today were our new students on Ibibio and Annang acculturation programmes in Nigerian languages. We are glad to report that many graduates of non-Nigerian language courses are fast converting to Nigerian languages to make their life careers working in Nigerian languages. It is worthy of mention that we are in the final stages of memoranda of understanding with the Nupe, Obolo, Tiv, Idoma and Igede languages towards their development. But we need government to help us in this area of patronage, especially the state governments. We’ve sent out calls to the governors of the 36 states of Nigeria to begin to send their teachers to NINLAN to make their language one that can be used for literature.
Imagine having teachers of Nupe, Tiv, Fula, Kanuri, Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Ijaw and so many other languages. Imagine if the government could assist in sending them here by their own order? I’m sure we’ll do a lot and save many languages from going extinct. We equally plead with the Federal Government to allow us to admit our students in these languages because we have over 5,000 languages in Nigeria. If we get just 20 students each in all the languages, this place will be filled up with students, and we may not even ask the Federal Government for further assistance, but if we must do so, it may be at a minimal level. Go to Nigerian universities; the study of Nigerian languages is not rooted there.
Rather, each school tries to study the languages of its indigenous host. This was why the Federal Government established special institutions like NINLAN to handle such. If only states and their Commissioners for Education could push hard, they’d come here, bring their teachers, and we’d make history together. Once again, let me appeal to all state governors of Nigeria and stakeholders to seize the opportunities offered by NINLAN to patriotically develop the Nigerian (Indigenous) languages spoken in their states by granting scholarships to their citizens to study their mother tongues in refresher, improvement, acculturation, conversion, development and research trainings at NINLAN. The Federal Government has established NINLAN; let state governors in whose states and regions the Nigerian languages are spoken water NINLAN benefit from it for the educational, social, political, economic and cultural development of their states, peoples and the nation at large.

NINLAN has gone through a series of affiliations; now you have affiliation with NOUN for your degree programmes. aren’t you tired?
Affiliation is an academic communion. You can see how we welcomed the Vice-Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka, for her relentless determination to help NINLAN succeed in our affiliation with her university. So, there is nothing wrong with properly done affiliation. For instance, if we had 100 affiliated students matriculating from NAU today, nobody would even complain. There is nothing wrong with it. By the time we got the list to select from, admission for the last session was already closing, and that was why we got a small number from the affiliation programmes. However, in languages, let me assure you that even with the affiliation–I mean, even if we affiliate with all the universities in this country–we cannot get the coordinate figures of all Nigerian languages. Out of over 500 Nigerian languages, there are 400 that are not being studied anywhere.As I speak to you, there are unknown Nigerian languages that, if we’re well funded, we’ll explore, discover and do the needful to save them from going into oblivion.

So far, what can you boast of here since assuming your position as the Executive Director?
When I arrived 12 months ago, I discovered that we didn’t have any approved curricula. But, we’ve developed 12 curricula in 12 Nigerian languages. Two from each political zone of the country, and now, we’re publishing them. In a move to get the Institute on strong footing in implementing its mandate, we’ve been able to craft curricula for first-degree courses in Linguistics and Nigerian languages. This move means that NINLAN is now in readiness for the award of degrees in Nigerian languages as contained in the Act setting up the Institute. You can actually see some coming in the form of monolingual and bilingual courses. For instance, you could see B.A. Kanuri, Edo, Efik, Fulfulde, Ibibio, Ijaw, Urhobo, Yoruba, Hausa, and Tiv for monolingual courses and B.A. Igbo/Ijaw, Hausa/Kanuri, Igbo/Efik, Yoruba/Tiv, Igbo/Yoruba, Igbo/Hausa, Hausa/Fulfulde, Yoruba/Urhobo, Urhobo/Yoruba, and Kanuri/Hausa for bilingual courses.
This curriculum was not developed haphazardly. In generating curriculum for each of the courses, NINLAN considered the sacredness of the National Universities Commission’s (NUC’s) 70% Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards (CCMAS) and blended it with local content. Also, in generating bilingual curricula, 70% L1 and 30% L2 contents were captured. NINLAN harmonised the 70% CCMAS with the 30% local content by ensuring that courses in CCMAS 70% were not repeated in CCMAS 30%, with observed duplications deleted.
Aside from this technical part, we’re making innovations that will equally make it easier to type in those languages and not have to type in English alphabets and then struggle to put in diacritics. We take it simply as Nigerian language keyboards without putting in the necessary differences ourselves, but through direct typing. Nigerian languages aren’t written as straightforward as English alphabets. There are certain symbols called diacritics. They are marks, such as accents, dots, or squiggles added to letters to indicate pronunciation, tone, or stress or to distinguish between words. They serve to modify the sound of an unmarked letter, creating new sounds not present in the basic alphabet, or to show specific meanings. They help to differentiate alphabets that look like each other to draw the true meaning from each. We’ve had discussions and signed a memorandum with a Chinese company that will give us a Nigerian languages keyboard. It’ll start with the 12 we’ve already developed curricula on.
However, after the 12, we’ll begin to develop as many as we have. So, to summarise my tenure in a simple explanation, I can say that in my tenure as Executive Director, NINLAN has continued to witness transformations in both academic and infrastructure areas. To address the grave security concerns posed by our expansive 209.5-hectare unfenced campus, we have commenced the installation of solar-powered streetlights at strategic locations to enhance visibility and safety for staff and students, especially at night. In line with our mandate to serve all parts of the country equitably, the Institute has restructured its faculty formations to reflect the six geopolitical zones of Nigerian languages under our care. We are equally championing technological innovations by developing specialised computer keyboards with indigenous language characters, in partnership with a Chinese technical firm, to support reading, writing, and digital content creation in some Nigerian languages.

What impact has government and its agencies made in the life of the Institute?
The NINLAN community is grateful to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Visitor to the Institute, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for his ongoing effective determination to restore and transform NINLAN to what it should be. Our visionary and indefatigable Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, has remained focused on uplifting this institute alongside other inter-university centres in Nigeria. History will remember his exemplary leadership in granting NINLAN and sister centres infrastructural development, in strict accordance with TETFund and guidelines.
His policies toward education in Nigeria are effective. Additionally, his approval for the construction of a students’ hostel here in NINLAN stands as a clear demonstration of his commitment to making this institute truly functional and competitive. NINLAN appreciates the Minister of State for Education, Professor Suwaiba Said Ahmad for her teamwork and collaboration to develop education in Nigeria.
We are equally grateful to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Benjamin Okezie Kalu, a true benefactor and friend of NINLAN, who has adopted this institute as his pet project. Through his instrumentality, NINLAN has benefited from several constituency projects. Of most strategic importance is the Bill he is courageously sponsoring for the upgrade of NINLAN to a full-fledged ‘University of Nigeria Languages’, which has already passed second reading at the National Assembly. The management and NINLAN community appreciate the Governor of Abia State, His Excellency, Dr Alex Otti, on whose soil the institution is located, for granting an audience to the Governing Council and his pledge to help the institution, which is located on his soil, solve some of its problems as the landlord. The NINLAN community greets the Chairman of the 6th Governing Council of NINLAN and his team for their effective oversight functions at NINLAN. Frankly speaking, a lot of projects are being attracted to NINLAN to help us make use of the vast area of land you alluded to. However, we still plead with the federal government to release our takeoff grant. We have a law as old as 1993 mandating us to run certificate, diploma, and degree programmes. But some people claim that they’re not aware that such a law existed, but now they know that we have such laws to run the above-mentioned programmes. We’ve already sent cries for help to stakeholders to begin to patronise NINLAN. People can come here, build hostels, cover their prices and leave it for NINLAN. People who deal in food can equally come and invest.

This is an era of technology, what does your online presence look like?
Beyond the other aforementioned innovations, the Institute is also developing pioneering text-to-speech and speech-to-text applications powered by natural language processing algorithms, which will facilitate modern teaching, learning and research in Nigerian languages. We have equally designed the NINLAN Nigerian Languages Online (NNLO). The programme, which, when launched, will deliver certificate and diploma programmes virtually to Nigerians at home and abroad, including foreigners seeking to acquire proficiency in Nigerian languages for business, career, diplomatic, or cultural purposes.
To boost language immersion and acquisition, we have established Acculturation and Language Acquisition Centres (ALACS) in some of the six geopolitical zones of the country, which serve as hubs where learners can internalise our languages in natural environments, guided by well-developed operational procedures. The NINLAN Acculturation programme has been redesigned to include our demonstration schools with the strategic decision that, beginning from the next academic year, children enrolled in these schools must study and be examined in Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba proficiency in Nigeria’s major languages for national cohesion.
Also, our website is currently undergoing comprehensive restructuring by DANUJ Nig. Ltd, in compliance with the directive of the Honourable Minister of Education and TETFund standards, which includes capacity-building for our ICT personnel to independently manage the platform after handover. In keeping with our core mandate, we have equally undertaken the restructuring of all postgraduate diplomas, insisting that a minimum of 50% of coursework, particularly in the PGDE, consists of Nigerian language-orientated content. On the infrastructural front, the institute has embarked on rehabilitation works, including the main security building and the renovation of dilapidated structures at the city campus to give NINLAN a befitting outlook. Simultaneously, we continue to build human capital through robust staff development initiatives, as many of our academic staff are currently pursuing postgraduate studies in reputable Nigerian universities, while their non-teaching counterparts are benefiting from targeted training and mentorship programmes designed to enhance their effectiveness and productivity.

So, what does the innovations in indigenous languages learning translate to, and what should people expect?
This translates into availability and visibility of publications in Nigerian languages. The computer types so fast, and when you have a Nigerian language-specific keyboard, it’ll be easier for you to type and send your copies outside the country to various journals to publish and develop your literature better. We’re in a hurry to develop. Like I said, we’ve already crafted a curriculum on 12 Nigerian languages. We’re already in affiliation with some individuals who own language centres in Akwa-Ibom State.
We already have some in Benue for Tiv and Igede, as well as one for Igala in Kogi. We’re also working with the Obolo Group because they want to write their own Bible in the Obolo language. That’ll be very great for us if we’re able to guide them to get their autograph right. This is why the computer keyboard in Nigerian languages is important. It was just recently that some languages translated the Bible into their tongues.
Government should really look into this; education is expensive, we need research, and I want our governors to adopt pro-people policies and give people the audacity for their language. With their language, they can open new channels of income. Languages are key elements of unity in this country. They’re bridge builders, and we must move beyond that and make it something that people can develop, appreciate and market as well.