PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF LINGUA FRANCA IN NIGERIA.
A lingua franca is a language used for common communication among peoples of a country with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds like Nigeria, For instance. in some countries in East Africa like Tanzania and Kenya, Swahili has been adopted as the lingua franca. A lingua franca is supposed to be a language accepted and adopted by a country and spoken among natives who have their different native languages.
In Nigeria, presently, the language which can be regarded as the lingua franca is the English language, the language of the colonizers. English language has served the country over the years as both the official language and the lingua franca. However, Nigeria, as a multi-ethnic country with diverse cultural and linguistic affinities needs a lingua franca even if it means throwing off the last yoke of colonialism by replacing English language with a lingua famca.
A. lingua franca can do a lot of good for the country. As a means of effective communication among all tribes and ethnic groups in the country, a lingua franca will promote unity and harmony. When there is a common language spoken by all the. ethnic groups in Nigeria, there is every tendency that the various ethnic languages and dialects will be de-emphasized. This will lead to people in the country regarding one another as brothers and sisters. It will facilitate easy communication and understanding.
In addition, a lingua franca is a leveller. It is a language spoken by both the rich and the poor. the noble and the peasants. A lingua franca bridges the yearning gap between the rich and the poor as it is natural that the person one shares a language with is one's brother.
Furthermore, a lingua franca is desirable for national integrity. A country with a distinguished lingua franca is identified with the language and as such. it is respected among comity of nations. In fact, other nations look down on a nation which uses another country's language as its lingua franca. It is even worse if the lingua franca is the language of a coloniser.
The adoption of a lingua franca could be fraught with a lot of problems. The first problem is that of acceptance. The ethnic groups always cling to their different native languages which they regard as their mother tongues. As a result of this, making them to accept a lingua franca may mean to them dropping their mother tongues for another language.
The second problem is that in Nigeria. the several ethnic groups always associate the number of the speakers of their ethnic languages with population. They believe that languages have to do with geographical spread and thus, they resist every attempt to undermine the use of their native languages.
Nigeria needs to have a national lingua franca policy as a matter of urgency. If the country could gradually and assiduously pursue a policy on lingua franca. a language could emerge out of the various ethnic languages we have. A lingua franca is always a melange of the two or more languages, especially the languages of the minority groups. I am sure that if a lingua franca emerges out of the languages of the minority ethnic groups in Nigeria, such lingua franca will be nationally accepted and it would not be regarded by other major ethnic groups as local imperialism.