HURIWA Threatens Action Over Cancellation of Mother Tongue Education Policy
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has announced plans to initiate a class-action lawsuit to challenge the Federal Government’s decision to abolish the policy mandating the use of indigenous languages in early education, describing the reversal as “cultural, scientific, and educational suicide.”
The rights group, through its National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Nnadozie Onwubiko, said it has begun discussions with over 200 lawyers and cultural organization leaders across the country to file the suit, which seeks to stop President Bola Ahmed Tinubu from going ahead with the cancellation.
Minister Blames Mother Tongue for Mass Failures
The controversy arose after the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, announced the cancellation of the 2022 National Language Policy (NLP) at the 2025 Language in Education International Conference in Abuja. The NLP had stipulated that the language of instruction from Early Childhood Education to Primary Six would be in the mother tongue or the language of the immediate community.
Minister Alausa defended the cancellation, stating that the decision was based on “extensive data analysis and evidence” showing that the use of mother tongue negatively impacted learning outcomes.
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“Using the mother tongue language in Nigeria for the past 15 years has literally destroyed education in certain regions,” the Minister maintained, claiming that data gathered revealed students taught primarily in indigenous languages recorded higher failure rates in national examinations and struggled with basic English comprehension. Alausa declared that English now stands as the medium of instruction across all levels of education.
HURIWA Cites Global Practice, Alleges “Colonial Mentality”
HURIWA vehemently dismissed the Minister’s reasoning as “spurious and unscientific,” arguing there is insufficient data to attribute poor performance to mother tongue instruction, especially since the policy was applicable in less than 6% of public and private schools.
“Does it even make sense to teach our children in a foreign language of English when most of the greatest scholars and thinkers whose works we use in schools initiated these intellectual works and inventions in their distinctive mother tongue?” HURIWA queried.
The group pointed out that advanced societies like China, South Korea, Japan, France, and Belgium educate their children in their mother tongue, and their students are excelling in the sciences and information technology fields. HURIWA suggested the cancellation was motivated by a “colonial mentality and inferiority complex” afflicting officials who manufactured “fake statistics” to annul the policy.
HURIWA is urging the State Houses of Assembly to legislate the use of the mother tongue policy into law for the early education of children in their respective states.
By PRNigeria
