Abstract
The national language question has continued to be a recurring issue in the Nigerian sociopolitical context. This paper examines the role of English language and the quest for a national language in Nigeria. The paper pointed out that the amalgamation of the Southern and the Northern protectorates by Lord Lugard in 1914 were partly responsible for the multilingual status of Nigeria because it formed a common community out of otherwise different ethnic groups that have different languages and cultures. The issue of having a national language has resulted into political instability, multilingual nature of the country and it has seriously affected many deliberations in the national and state assemblies in Nigeria. The objective of this is to propose a national language that will be acceptable to all Nigerians and that will lead to mutual intelligibility on the parts of the speakers in Nigeria. Findings from this study reveal the four factors of driven Nigeria language policy through a cursory theoretical examination of the causes and types of Nigerian English expressions. Some of these expressions are deviations while some are viable innovations. In another dimension, this paper inferred that so far, the country is divided into six geo – political zones, where every zone would adopt one major indigenous language as an official national language and English should be retrained as the first official language that serves as a bridge between the geo – political / linguistic zones. This paper proposes that the Nigerian English which is terms as ‘Ninglish’ should be adopted as the official language for proper mutual understanding among the various ethnic groups and English language should be seen as a working language rather than being referred to as National language.
Keywords: National language, Nigeria
English, Official language, language policy, Nigeria languages.
DOI: 10.36349/sojolics.2026.v02i02.001
author/Opoola, A. F., & Ajayi, E. S.
journal/Sokoto JOLICS 2(2) | August 2026 |
