*Photo: Professor Adebisi Afolayan*
February 21 every year is International Mother Language Day. A United Nations (UN) document on observances of days and weeks declares as follows: “The United Nations designates specific days, weeks, years and decades as occasions to mark particular events or topics in order to promote, through awareness and action, the objectives of the Organization. Usually, it is one or more Member States that propose these observances and the General Assembly establishes them with a resolution.”
The UN notes in addition: “International Mother Language Day was proclaimedby the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in November 1999. The idea to celebrate International Mother Language Day was the initiative of Bangladesh. The UN General Assembly welcomed the proclamation of the day in its resolutionof 2002.”
In another document, the UN states: “International Mother Language Day… underscores the role of languages in promoting inclusion and achieving Sustainable development Goals. Multilingual education policies, highlighted in the 2024 theme ‘Multilingual education – a pillar of learning and intergenerational learning’, are crucial for inclusive education and the preservation of indigenous languages. By starting education in the learner’s mother tongue and gradually introducing other languages, barriers between home and school are bridged, facilitating effective learning. Multilingual education not only promotes inclusive societies but also aids in preserving non-dominant, minority, and indigenous languages. It is a cornerstone for achieving equitable access to education and lifelong learning opportunities for all individuals.”
In consonance with the recognition of the benefits of providing education in mother-tongue medium, a 9 December, 2022 editorial of Daily Trust stated as follows about the then-Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu: “In another attempt to ease knowledge acquisition for learners in Nigerian schools, the federal government recently approved a new National Language Policy that seeks to make mother-tongue a compulsory medium of instruction in the first six years of basic education; from primary 1 to 6. Addressing reporters after a meeting of the Federal Executive Council, the Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, said mother-tongue would be used exclusively for the first six years of education; adding that it would be combined with English language from Junior Secondary School.”
The editorial further stated: “Adamu, however, said the policy could only be fully implemented when government developed instructional materials and provided qualified teachers. He noted that the decision is only in principle for now as it would require a lot of work to implement. Although the minister declared that all Nigerian languages are equal and shall be treated as such, he was quick to add that the mother-tongue to be used in each school would be the dominant language spoken by the community where it is located.”
Relatedly, at the 10th Annual Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Lecture Series organised by the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation and held in Maiduguri on 27 January, 2024, the Governor of Niger State, Mallam Muhammad Umaru Bago, referred to the Chinese and Malaysian experiences in which education in the mother tongue has been the pivot of development. He then asked rhetorically with respect to Nigeria: “We need to decide to say do we need to speak English in our schools, so that we don’t waste another 7 years trying to learn English?”
The former Minister of Education and the incumbent Governor of Niger State have a worthy forebear in Professor Adebisi Afolayan. Indicated by a close source as being in his late nineties now, Professor Afolayan, former Head of the Department of English and Faculty of Arts at Obafemi Awolowo University (O.A.U.), is not just a Language and Education academic and intellectual, he is a mother-tongue-medium education advocate, ‘activist’ and icon.
Together with his equally innovative academic and intellectual colleague at O.A.U., the late former Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University and later Minister of Education, Professor Aliu Babatunde Fafunwa, Professor Afolayan embarked on a research project to test the hypothesis that children would learn more effectively and better develop optimal self-esteem if they were taught exclusively in the mother tongue at the early stage of education. This project which was named “The 6-Year Primary Education Project” ran from 1970 to 1978.
A 62-page unpublished 1970 document by Professor Adebisi Afolayan details different aspects of the project, and is entitled, “The Six-Year Primary Project in the Use of Yoruba as the Medium of Primary Education: A Project of the Institute of Education of the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, in Collaboration with the Ford Foundation, the Western State Ministry of Education, the Local School Board, and All Available Scholars of Yoruba and English Studies.”
On 9 February, 2024, at O.AU., Ile-Ife, a book presentation was organised in honour of this icon of mother-tongue medium education and Coordinator of the pilot project, Professor Afolayan. The title of the 713-page book is Adebisi Afolayan: The Celebration of a Legend – His Life, Works and Everything In-between. It is authored by Michael Oladejo Afolayan (with a Foreword by Toyin Falola), and is published by Pan-African University Press in Austin, Texas, and Ibadan in 2024.
Of particular interest is Chapter 8 of the book. It is entitled “A History of the Six-Year Primary Project in the Use of Yoruba as the Medium of Primary Education,” and is authored by the famous historian Professor Toyin Falola and the notable Professor of Linguistics and Education Michael Oladejo Afolayan. According to these authors, “Afolayan identifies four problems that faced his team of experts, who were selected from various fields: The provision of an adequate syllabus; the availability of adequate textbooks; the supply of adequate teachers; and experimental and technical difficulties. All of these differ a great deal from the even more complicated issue of political will …The political will as well as anachronistic views of consumers, especially parents, who were already ingrained into the culture of total dependency on the colonial education and what it considers as the retrogressive and delimiting factors of a mother tongue education for their children, militated against the embrace of mother tongue education.”
Professors Toyin Falola and Oladejo Afolayan note further: “The Six-Year Primary Project sadly did not go beyond the initial experimental stage and never experienced implementations at any appreciable large scale known to us. Yet, it was not a wasted effort because among products of the experiments were some of the finest professionals uniquely endowed in their individual calls of life. Chief among those success stories is the famous musician, saxophonist and choreographer popularly known as Lagbaja, whose unique model of musical performance and theatricality has been nonpareil in the Black world.”
It is quite thoughtful that in the month in which the UN-declared Mother Language Day was celebrated worldwide, the legendary Mother tongue education advocate, Professor Adebisi Afolayan, was also honoured by beneficiaries of his mentorship. As one of his mentors, the late Professor Femi Akindele put it in a 1994 citation when Professor Afolayan was retiring from the services of O.A.U., “To put it mildly, he made most of us in the Department of English today.” Support for Professor Akindele’s claim is not difficult to find.
Professor Adebisi Afolayan was the one who, forcefully arguing the need for “special dispensation”, got about twelve of us employed as Graduate Assistants in 1982, at a time the Senate of the University had taken a decision against appointing lecturers into that cadre.
Professor Afolayan believed the decision was not in the best interest of the University, and he tenaciously argued his support for our appointment. And Baba, as Professor Afolayan is fondly called, was a powerful ‘debater’. He would argue his points logically, citing minutes of meetings of very many years ago that many members would probably have lost sight of or forgotten and with his characteristic “let’s see how you would beat this argument” gesticulations and other reinforcing non-verbal language.
Baba achieved that feat, because he was never afraid to stand alone. As a Business Growth Leader, A.G. Danish, states, “In a world where conformity often feels like the easiest path, it takes remarkable courage to stand alone, [and] those who dare to stand apart from the crowd are the ones who make a significant impact on the world.” Not minding the cost in criticism and confronting adversity, Professor Adebisi Afolayan could stand alone on any matter and in any forum, regularly validating the Orwellian dictum that “Sanity is not statistical.”
In his reminiscences of Professor Afolayan’s heydays, a Professor of Linguistics, Akeem Salawu, remarked: “I could recall the energy and excellent teaching ability of Baba Agba when he taught me EGL 101 in 1985… Baba taught us all aspects of English studies in Part 1.” Yes. Professor Adebisi Afolayan believed that the most competent, most skilled and most experienced of the lecturers in a department should be the ones to teach Part 1 courses, so that the new students could have exposure to the best ideas on every subject in the department, have a solid foundation of scholarship in the academic field and enjoy a good first impression of university life, through the guidance of the most mature minds available.
Professor Afolayan is a devout Christian. And there were testimonies to this by lay people and Christian clergy. But the clearest indication of Baba’s identification with and devotion to Christianity is that even masked ace musician Lagbaja, in his performance at the book presentation, raised Christian hymns which the audience chorused heartily and to which they danced in unmistakable and infectious joy.
Notwithstanding his Christian credentials, Professor Afolayan was father to all and he nurtured us in our academic and intellectual infancy. Mama, his darling wife, was mother to us all, as well.
So, they both quite well deserve the prayer which the Qur’an, Chapter 17, Verse 24 exhorts a Muslim to offer for their parents: “My Lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up when I was young.” This prayer is apposite in the light of the Qur’an, Chapter 36, Verse 68, which says, “And those to whom We grant long life, We revert them to a state of weakness.” When I consider how our physically agile and intellectually robust Baba, who is now in his late 90s, has responded to the dictates of nature, I can only say, “God is great.”
The legacy which Professor Adebisi Afolayan and his team on the mother tongue medium education project has left for posterity is to indicate what is desirable, show how it can be done and point to the amazing products of its experimentation in the Southwest.
It is hoped that our present crop of leaders would take up the challenge from there by convening broad-based summits of intellectuals, educational administrators and other education stakeholders to make the nationwide implementation of the noble mother tongue medium education proposition a reality in due course.