Dr. Mikailu Ibrahim ([email protected])
In a public address in Hausa to the rescued Kankara boys, President Muhammadu Buhari encouraged them to pay attention to the learning of sciences for its assurances of gainful employment.
As usual with unscripted addresses, the President made a big gaffe of mocking other fields of studies as worthless citing history and English studies. In his words:
“Boys, you are very lucky. This school is special as it offers the opportunity for learning sciences. Pay attention; it is what the life of today needs. Yours is not the same with those who study history or English. Those who studied sciences will be more gainfully employed”
A simple reflection would show President Muhammadu Buhari in the bracket of the least literate Presidents Nigeria ever had as a nation since independence -perhaps he can compare only to General Abacha in this regard.
The statement in view is an interesting evidence to the limited perceptions of our president as a result of lacking the minimum enlightenment to understand global trends on the purpose of education, employability and development.
It is discernible from the statement that history and English happened only to be the prototypical examples of worthless areas of learning in the subconscious of the President; he must be seeing in a related light all courses in social sciences and humanities -political science, sociology, economics, literature, religion, philosophy and law among others.
While history, English and other subjects in this category are all critical to the 21st century life, I would like to narrow my response to highlighting the many merits of studying English as a language with special focus on Nigeria.
At an advance level, Language studies which English belongs to, is not limited to the micro aspects of sound production and construction of sentences in speech or writing.
It covers among others human communication with its ethnomethodological dispositions as done in discourse studies and pragmatics; literary studies which examines the creation and re-creation of reality with stimulating imaginations as studied in stylistics and critical theories; society and its stratifications from the lens of language as undertaken in sociolinguistics; psychology and related algorithms of human consciousness in psycholinguistics and language teaching which comes with the essential requirements of development of advance literacy in applied linguistics.
Departments of English in Nigerian universities and colleges have done so well in this regard and helped produce critical manpower that served the nation in diverse areas -education, communication and good institutional leadership.
Globally, Nigeria made a name for English and literary studies. The only Nobel Laureate in the country, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has English and Literary Studies as core area of competence. With this skill, he earned the proud title of the ‘conscience of the nation’.
Another colossus in literary achievements, thanks to the combined studies of English and History, was Chinua Achebe whose “Things Fall Apart” has been acknowledged among global best novels. Before these first generation of stars eclipsed, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie rose to keep the Nigeria’s literary flag flying.
At global level, Noam Chomsky leads in the world’s intellectual space with scathing commentaries on power hand-in-hand with his breakthroughs in rethinking languages with theories that contributed in the development of digital technologies.
These achievements are not accidents; they are products of the contents and character of the researches conducted and courses learnt through the studies of English which the small brain of my President could not grasp.
Let me observe that, President Buhari might have forgotten that the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria’s National Universities Commission (NUC), Prof. Abubakar Rasheed, is an English Language scholar.
He took over this position after meritoriously serving as a Vice Chancellor to Bayero University Kano where he earned the recognition of “the founder of modern BUK”. Earlier from 1996 to 1999, Prof. Munzali Jibril with the same background of English Studies led the National Universities Commission as its Executive Secretary.
This makes two out of the nine Chief Executive Officers of the nation’s regulatory agency for all universities since 1962 to come from an area of studies which President Buhari does not consider good enough for the Kankara boys.
I had the privilege of meeting Prof. Abubakar Rasheed and Prof. Munzali Jibril at a point in my life and truly believe that the world and Nigeria of the future need more like them -and I believe strongly that essential part of being what they are was the study of English language.
In a related light of good institutional leadership from people with background on language studies, I must mention Prof. Bello Salim in whose time as the Registrar of Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) different types of the same question paper was introduced (type S-A-L-I-M after his name) which creatively responded to the trend of malpractice in the examination as per back as 1999.
Today, Prof. Isma’ila Junaidu is doing us a lot of proud as the Executive Secretary of Nigeria Education Research and Development Council with his linguistics knowledge and skills. Let me observe that, From Prof. Ayo Bamgbose who happens to be the first Professor of Linguistics in Nigeria through Prof. Ayo Banjo who served as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan in 1980’s to Prof. Mustapha Ahmad Isah who recently completed his tenure as the pioneers vice chancellor of Yusuf Maitama Sule University Kano, Nigerians who studied English and related subjects continue prove to be dynamic and productive leaders of institutions such as universities, ministries of education and several other agencies.
Perhaps, one task for me as the National Secretary of English Scholars Association of Nigeria (ESAN) will be to initiate the documentation of who-is-who in English, Linguistics and Literary studies to prove that ours is indeed an area of great need and service.
In conclusion, people are said to be enemies of what they don’t know and that seems exactly the case with President Muhammadu Buhari in the statement at hand and many other instances.
By discouraging the Kankara boys from the studies of English Language, little does President Buhari realize that he was discouraging the poor children from learning what is the essence of knowledge and human existence.
This is unequivocal from the two sources of Nigeria’s major religions: “and God made Adam aware of the names of all things” and “in the beginning was the word…” say the Qur’an and Bible respectively.
Discourse studies, an aspect of English language studies, has been an area of my teaching and learning interest over the last 15 years; and I have seen how it has enabled my colleagues and students earn a living, build lasting relationships, make peace and more.
[Iya] “Magana Jari Ce” (A word is an asset) Hausas didactically say!