Dr Nkechi Ohaike, an educationist, has called on Abia Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu to partner language experts in working out modalities for the success of the planned Aba Business School.
Ohaike, who is a lecturer at the National Institute for Nigerian Languages (NINLAN), Aba, made the call on Wednesday during an interview in Aba, Abia.
She was reacting to Ikpeazu’s announcement in May of his plan to establish a business school in Aba which would use Igbo as its language of instruction.
She said that Ikpeazu, having decided that the school’s language of instruction should be Igbo, should ensure that using the language for instruction would not create any hitch for the institute.
Ohaike said that the planned establishment of the school which would give instructions in Igbo language would benefit the people and the language by expanding and developing it the more.
The lecturer expressed displeasure that Igbo native speakers’ attitude to the language was threatening its existence.
According to her, the use of Igbo as a language of instruction in tertiary education will boost researches in it.
She said that many administrations in the country had created great ideas and projects but most times lacked the political will to implement such ideas and projects to fruition.
She lauded the governor’s plan to use Igbo as the school’s instructional language and urged him to ensure the idea did not die midway.
Ohaike urged Ikpeazu to ensure that he got the instructional language aspect of the institution right before its take-off noting that it would be key to the school’s success.
“With reference to lexical terms, the first thing I want is for you to know that no language is complete but languages are inter-dependent.
“What makes a language international, major or non major depends on how native speakers handle their language.
“In the case of Igbo, it is very rich and highly endowed with business and scientific terms.
“This is to the extent that the uninformed and native speakers carried out businesses in their local languages before the advent of formal education.
“It means that there should be quite a number of lexical items in sciences and business in our local language,” she said.
She, however, said that the language must expand through conscious effort to cover a wide range of business and scientific terms to serve better in higher education.
Ohaike also suggested organising trainer-trainee workshops for prospective lecturers of the school.
She explained that such would expose them to knowledge of handling lexical items not yet existing in the language by translation and terminological development experts.
