I went for a christian burial last Saturday - my first time in a church in a very long time and was amazed at the Preacher (Pastor?). Not sure of his title, but he gave the sermon at this funeral. It was half in Hausa and half in English and after almost every sentence, he would go 'it's like' or 'let me tell you honestly' (being in a church I assumed that everything he told us was the truth!). Halfway through his sermon, he stopped and says to the crowd 'hello' and they responded 'hi' and he went 'are you with me?' For a minute, I thought I was at a comedy show, and not at a formal and somber occasion. It got me thinking about how much our command of English, has deteriorated, in a country where English is the National language.
Having been born after the death of some Nigeria's great leaders like Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Sir Ahmadu Bello, I didn't get the opportunity to hear them speak live. T
he first time I heard Tafawa Balewa speak, I must have been about 16 years old and it was some program on Radio. All the images I had seen of him, were like this one and at the back of my mind I kind of thought of him as some rural illiterate farmer (very local in Nigerian terms), even though I knew about all he'd done towards our country's independence. Therefore when I heard his speech on radio, it was a total revelation. He spoke English like the British! If I hadn't known he was the one talking, I would have thought it was one of the English Colonial Rulers. Subsequentlt I heard Ahmadu Bello speak as well, and it was just the same. And this was 50 years ago, when majority of the people in the country had no access to education.
It surprises and annoys me that now, with 'development' there are more schools, more teachers, a lot more people who speak English, but the quality of both spoken and written English is so bad. When I went to primary school, your child didn't have to go to the best schools to speak English properly - now you can tell once you speak to a child, what kind of school he/she goes to. Since we can't all afford the Regents and the American International Schools, we resort to the next best where the education is almost as good but the English is not, and then insist that our children only speak English at home to improve their spoken English. Our leaders on the other hand do it the easy way since they can afford it - they simply send the children to school abroad. If only they would stop stealing the money earmarked for education each year, (amongst all the rest) and use it to improve the quality of our schools. It would be a step in the right direction towards true development.
Having been born after the death of some Nigeria's great leaders like Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Sir Ahmadu Bello, I didn't get the opportunity to hear them speak live. T
he first time I heard Tafawa Balewa speak, I must have been about 16 years old and it was some program on Radio. All the images I had seen of him, were like this one and at the back of my mind I kind of thought of him as some rural illiterate farmer (very local in Nigerian terms), even though I knew about all he'd done towards our country's independence. Therefore when I heard his speech on radio, it was a total revelation. He spoke English like the British! If I hadn't known he was the one talking, I would have thought it was one of the English Colonial Rulers. Subsequentlt I heard Ahmadu Bello speak as well, and it was just the same. And this was 50 years ago, when majority of the people in the country had no access to education.It surprises and annoys me that now, with 'development' there are more schools, more teachers, a lot more people who speak English, but the quality of both spoken and written English is so bad. When I went to primary school, your child didn't have to go to the best schools to speak English properly - now you can tell once you speak to a child, what kind of school he/she goes to. Since we can't all afford the Regents and the American International Schools, we resort to the next best where the education is almost as good but the English is not, and then insist that our children only speak English at home to improve their spoken English. Our leaders on the other hand do it the easy way since they can afford it - they simply send the children to school abroad. If only they would stop stealing the money earmarked for education each year, (amongst all the rest) and use it to improve the quality of our schools. It would be a step in the right direction towards true development.
