Happy Children's Day

The first time I saw this popular image a few weeks back, it haunted me. The girl in the picture is a 4 year old Syrian refuge. She raised up her hands in submission when she saw the photographer point his camera towards her thinking it was a gun.

Today is Children's day and we celebrate them but are we making the world more conducive for them? I mean, not all kids are like the Syrian girl in the picture who lives in the constant fear and thinks any black and long object is a gun ready to take her life. We have kids in the West African coasts slaving away on Cocoa plantations who have never tasted a bar of chocolate. We've got some locked up in terrorists cells and are being raped and (or) brain-washed into fanaticism. 

Of course not all kids are refugees, slaves and hostages, we also have the over-protected kids. I mean, those kids who at 17 years are NOT ALLOWED to have independent reasoning, be responsible for anything and can't even make simple decisions on there own like how to take a bus to school but at 18 years are ALLOWED to invade a country, sojourn uncharted terrains and be equipped with the most sophisticated weapons. The scaffolding model of learning life's important skills has been robbed from them.

We can not all be UNICEF Ambassadors or Social worker but in our little space we can make a little difference in a Child's life. It may be helping protect the environment for them, teaching them a skill and what have you. In Nigeria, according to the most recent UNICEF data, Primary School enrollment is 57.6%. That means almost half of the kids don't get to see the 4-walls of a classroom. We need change, and change starts one kid at a time and their different avenues through which we can contribute.

BUT SERIOUSLY... let's show the kids what a wonderful world it can be

Pidgin English to the Rescue!

Over the past few months, I have been making some posts on my Facebook page and just this week, I remembered I HAVE A BLOG!

Since the days of the tower of Babel, it has been evident to mankind that language has a huge part to play in the development of a people but unfortunately Nigeria doesn't have a language. But...but...but English??? Yeah! English is considered the official language but what is the use of a language when it is pretty safe to say that well over half of the population do not have a good command it (as evidenced by the amount of unintentional typos you might see in this post). This can be attributed to the fact that we have a diversity of tribes and each tribe takes a lot of pride in their language and would rather converse in their separate languages because it breeds a deeper level of understanding that English language can not reach. So what then happens when two people from different tribes want to communicate? Good question. They use Pidgin English.

Pidgin English popularly known as Brokin in Nigeria can be considered as a lingua franca across Nigeria. We are in the season of elections and a trend that I have noticed is that when a politician goes to a place that he can not speak the tribal language of the people, he turns to Brokin for help. Nigeria has over 300 tribes. Each with their own form of music (and musical instruments often times) but there are some songs that are played and enjoyed in almost any part of the country you go to regardless of the tribe of the musician. A common denominator in those songs that break the barrier of tribes and cultures is the use of Brokin in the lyrics (the beats help though :)). Go to any market in any city or town, if the buyer and seller are from different tribes and they speak different languages, the default language of transaction is Pidgin English.

Seeing that Brokin has become the lingua franca in trade, entertainment and politics (especially during campaigns) and it has been shown that a very large percentage of Nigerians feel more comfortable expressing themselves in the language, I believe it should be adopted in schools and I would go as far as saying that it should be adopted as the official language. I know this may sound radical but we have been struggling with English since 1914 and we have our own Brokin which we easily understand and communicate in. What is the use of language if we can not communicate in it? I mean, English Language is often wrongly used in the  media, in speeches by top government officials and at the highest level of academia and it has got to the point that it is no a thing of shame or an awkward moment when it happens. Even, in high level meetings, when the speaker doesn't know how to express his/her idea in English, they default to brokin. Case in point, The First Lady and The Principal - “na only you waka come?”.

So what is the way forward. I believe the first step is that Pidgin English should be formalized. My colleagues in the Linguistics departments all over the country can define a formal grammar and rules that would guide its usage. Thinking about it, the grammar of Pidgin English is not as rigid as that of English Language. Verbs in Pidgin have only one form. For example the present, future, and past tense of the verb “waka” is “waka”. Nouns might not necessarily be touched as we can easily borrow that from English Language. But...but… it would no more be PIDGIN English because the PIDGIN in it means a non-formal language right? Yeah, it would no more be Pidgin English once it becomes formalized and standardized so we can call it something else - Nigerianese, Waffi, Brokin, etc. Afrikaans is one of the official languages in South Africa and Namibia and it is a formalized form of Pidgin Dutch. I believe we should follow suite.

The benefits Brokin would have on our society if it is accepted as an official language would be immense and I predict a radical change in pace of development as a result. Imagine the number of students that would be rooted in useful background and fundamental concepts if Brokin is accepted as the official language in Primary and Secondary schools. Imagine if your Chemistry teacher explained Avogadro’s principle in Brokin, I bet it would stay with you 10 years after. Think about the number of deaths or complications that would have been avoided if usage of drugs and prescriptions was written in Brokin. Am I saying English should be completely phased out? Not at all. But it is no doubt that Nigerians communicate better among themselves in Brokin than in any other language. The advertising world knows this that’s why much of the jingles are in Brokin. It is high time we tap into the power of this language and formalize it for our development sake.

BUT SERIOUSLY.... abeg, this oyibo no dey work jooor!