THE insistence on foreign publications for promotion to senior academic positions in Nigerian universities has been condemned by a professor of English, Victor Amen Uhunwangho.
Delivering the 52nd Inaugural Lecture of the Ambrose Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, titled: The Politics of Language, Uhunwangho, who is the Provost of the College of Education, Ekiadolor, described the practice as retrogressive, since it exposes “our underbellies to the continuous limitation of the very growth being sought.”
Uhunwangho asked, “When we publish our secrets (local and national) in foreign journals, pray, are we not enriching those societies at our expense?”
Regarding the topic, Uhunwangho said that “languages and language loyalties are frequently exploited by the powers that be to further political ends”. As a result, he argued that mother-tongue and native speaker-hood should be treated as “political rather than linguistic issue”.
He explained this was the reason that languages like English have assumed hegemonic role, which however threatens local languages world over.
“Our languages so threatened, dying, throbbing in pains and shifting are equally carrying with them veritable volumes of knowledge about indigenous science, agriculture, arts, cultures and other things that define development,” he said.