MY COUNTRY NGERIA

 
WE HAVE ALL IT TAKES(BRAINS) WE JUST NEED STRUCTURE


A TEAM of 12 medical doctors led by a pediatric consultant, Prof. Awal Abubakar Wednesday successfully completed surgery operation on a baby girl born with four legs at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Yola in Adamawa State. The operation, which started Tuesday afternoon, was completed early morning of Wednesday. This is the first successful operation of its kind in the medical history of Nigeria. When The Guardian visited the hospital this morning, the baby girl was still being attended to by a team of medical workers at the pediatric ward of the hospital. 
We have it all here Father of the baby, 29-year old Mani Maigi told The Guardian at the hospital that he lacked words to express his appreciation to the hospital management for not only paying the hospital bills of his baby, but to ensure that the best medical team was selected to carry out the operation.
"I almost lost hope on the future of my baby when she was born with four legs, I think of the financial implication and where to take the baby, but the hospital assured me that the management will handle the case. Initially, I think it was the normal unfulfilled promises we are familiar with in 
this country, but today FMC Yola has not only fulfilled its promise to me, they have proven to the world that Nigeria has the best brains in the world". 
This is just one of the few stories of how good our medical doctors are, so the question now is why do we always run out there for surgery when we have the best brains here......
why not improve and invest in our motherland instead of spending so much on hospital bills abroad. India is what it is today because their Government invested and granted loan to them, Nigeria is blessed with riches and brains, all it lacks is GOOD GOVERNANCE......TIME TO CHANGE IS NOW!!!!!!!!


SHOCKING BUT TRUE!!!!!!  8 LANGUAGES GONE EXTINCT AND MORE TO GO IF WE DON'T DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

 A few weeks ago, award-winning Nigerian novelist and Belgium-based academic, Dr. Chika Unigwe, visited Enugu, the capital of Enugu State, otherwise called the Coal City. She made a discovery that shocked her. During a brief interaction with some local children whose ages were between four and 12 years, she found that most of them could not speak their native Igbo language. "I noticed - to my dismay - that many of the children (at least the ones I saw), sadly, do not speak Igbo. They are being raised monolingual, which means they only speak English. I asked this random kid (who looked about six years old) her name in Igbo. She responded in English. I asked how old she was in Igbo. She stared at me. I asked it in English, she responded, 'How old I am is one years old (sic).' Apparently, this girl cannot speak any language correctly at all," Unigwe wrote on her Facebook page. Predictably, the writer's statement drew the attention of 
many of her friends on the new media and, then, ignited a lengthy debate on her wall. Judging by the nature of the comments that trailed Unigwe's observation, many of those who responded to it were unaware of the syndrome that is currently threatening the continued survival of indigenous 
languages in Nigeria. While experts are fast losing hope on elite kids, even many of those (children) in the rural areas can no longer speak their mother tongue. In her last comment, Unigwe said, "It is ridiculous to see kids growing up without speaking their mother tongues, while living in that culture. Don't kids in Nigeria pick up English at school anymore? Hopefully, the schools do a 
better job than some parents who teach their kids grammar.
 A Lagos-based teacher ate the humble pie during the 2012 Eid-el-Kabir. He, alongside his wife and their two children, had travelled to Ila Orangun, Osun State, his home town, where they chose to celebrate the Islamic festival with his parents. As many kids love to do, Idiat, the teacher's four-year old daughter, was eager to mix and play with other children in the relatively large extended family. So, from the first evening, Idiat preferred to join her mates in the passage or outside the house, while her parents sat in the sitting room. But hardly had the little girl joined them that she returned to the father and mother. Crying bitterly, she said, "Daddy, they are speaking rubbish." 
 The problem was that Idiat could not understand Yoruba, which was the tongue in which the kids were conversing. Because she had not been exposed to the mother tongue, the language the innocent folks were speaking was not only an empty noise to her, it was also utter rubbish. 
What compounded the issue was the fact that the other kids were speaking Igbomina, a Yoruba dialect, and not the variant regarded as the standard. Anyway, Idiat's parents pet her and urged her to go back to her hosts. Yet, incessant quarrels, complaints and the 'rubbish refrain' were the order of the day throughout the days that the teacher stayed in Ila Orangun. "Honestly, I felt ashamed of myself," the teacher says. "It was there it dawned on my wife and I that we had not been fair to our children, ourselves and our cultural root by not teaching the kids Yoruba, or speaking it to them." Experts are agitated that if a child cannot speak his or her mother tongue today, that child's own children, say in the next 20 or 25 years, will know little or nothing about the language. After all, the dad or mum cannot teach what he or she does not know. The implication is that in the next 50 years or so, the fate of Nigerian languages would have become so dicey that they would not be far from extinction. The situation seems worsened by the fact that the ministries of education, which are in a position to enforce the propagation of the languages, are not serious about doing so. This is evident in a recent policy of the Federal Ministry of Education, which makes the study of at least one of Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo languages optional in the Senior 
Secondary School, as against the initial regime that made it compulsory. 

*Mixed marriage factor

 Stella Johnson, a female undergraduate of a Nigerian university, speaks Yoruba quite fluently, even though it is not her mother tongue. "I was born in Lagos and I picked up Yoruba from primary school," she says. Although Stella's parents hail from Delta State, they belong to different tribes. Her father, an Ika Igbo, speaks the language fluently, her mother is also proficient in her 
native Isoko language. Unfortunately, none of both parents has deemed it necessary to teach her how to speak and communicate effectively in either of the mother tongues. To make matters worse, only English language is spoken in their home. Stella speaks Yoruba only when she is with her friends. "Ever since I was a child, I have been speaking English at home. None of my parents understands each other's language. So, they speak English at home. In fact, English is the 
mother tongue in our home," she says. The young woman, who turned 20 a few weeks ago, wishes she could hold a conversation in either Isoko or Ika lgbo languages, just as she does in English and Yoruba. She feels there is a vacuum in her life that can be filled only when she finds someone who will be willing to teach her how to speak both languages fluently. Even regular visits by Stella's uncles, aunts and cousins to her home have not been of much help. "Nobody has ever bothered to teach me Isoko or Ika Igbo. Whenever my parents' relatives visit us, all they ever do is ask why I can't speak both languages. Honestly, I feel very embarrassed. I wish that I could find somebody who will teach me one of them, at least," she tells our correspondent.Nowadays, more Nigerians seem to be getting married across ethnic barriers. Many of them, like Stella's parents, may end up denying their children the opportunity and the advantage of learning their mother tongues. 
 Investigation has shown that in some cases, spouses that belong to the same ethnic group communicate only in English because one of them cannot speak the mother tongue. For example, although they are both Ishan, Reginald Osaro, who lives in the Alagbado area of Lagos, can only discuss with his wife, Adesuwa, in English. 
"My wife does not understand Ishan. But she speaks Igbo fluently because she grew up in her maternal grandmother's home in Imo State. My wife's mother is Igbo," Reginald says. Aware of the peculiar language situation in the country, one day, the Osaros decided to expose their son, who is barely two years old, to Ishan before he celebrates his fourth birthday. 
 "My wife came up with the suggestion and I felt it was a good idea. I would introduce our son to Ishan, which is his mother tongue, anyway, and she will ensure that he learns to speak good English. By the time the boy clocks four years, I am sure he will be able to speak both languages," Reginald says. 
Also, a public relations consultant, Adeola Odunowo, and his wife have devised a similar strategy to ensure that their two children become proficient in Yoruba. "Already, my five year-old daughter speaks Yoruba well, thanks to my wife who has undertaken the task of teaching the children the language. I can't teach them myself because I'm not proficient in Yoruba," Odunowo says. 
Odunowo blames his inability to speak his native language on the environment where he grew up. 
"I grew up in the old 1004 flats on Victoria Island. My neighbours were mainly expatriates and a few Nigerian families. I never heard indigenous Nigerian languages being spoken on the estate when I was there. The language spoken in my home at that time was English. My parents never spoke to us in Yoruba. But, somehow, I managed to pick up the language from the streets," he says. 

*Blaming parents

 Further investigation by our correspondent shows that many Nigerian children, even adults, across the country cannot communicate effectively in their native languages and the situation is attributed to various factors. A former Head of the Department of English at the University of Lagos, Prof. Akachi Ezeigbo, blames Nigerian parents for failing to introduce their children to the 
mother tongue at an early age. "Our indigenous languages are dying and I hold parents responsible for this. Parents make the error of thinking that if they expose a child to English, instead of his native language, he would learn well. But this is not true. The child will grow up being neither competent in the mother tongue nor English language," she says. Also, part of the blame, she adds, goes to 'cultural imperialists' for leading a campaign to label everything European - from food to language and clothes - as good and acceptable, while anything African is portrayed as bad and unacceptable. 
 Ezeigbo says early exposure to Nigerian languages will help improve a child's cognitive development. Using her own Children's performances in the West African School 
Certificate Examination as an illustration, she notes that children have a better chance of learning other languages if they are exposed to the mother tongue early enough. 
"I believe so much in children speaking the mother tongue. It helps them to master any other language. It is easier for children to speak all languages when you expose them to the 
mother tongue at the age of three. More important, it helps them to improve in their academic work," she says. Ezeigbo thinks it is 'criminal' for a parent not to teach his children the mother tongue. She says children that are exposed to Nigerian languages early enough are able to 
communicate ideas effectively in English language. The award-winning novelist and poet wonders why the products of inter-tribal marriages are often unable to speak the native languages of their parents, saying that it is primarily the responsibility of the female spouse to introduce the children to the mother tongue at an early age. "When students come into my office, the first thing I ask 
them is if they speak their native languages. What they tell me is that their parents never spoke it to them at home. I think this is shocking," she says. 

*Inferiority complex

 One of those who commented on Unigwe's Facebook wall, a professor of sociolinguistics at the University of Roehampton in the United Kingdom, named Tope Omoniyi, blamed the current shift from the mother tongue on the poor attitude of the Nigerian elite toward indigenous languages. 
Omoniyi said, "It is a shame that those who ought to know better in our society do not know at all. UNESCO and various other studies have shown, time and again, that children who have mother tongue medium of instruction and learnt English as a subject experience higher cognitive development than those who are instructed in English. 
"Yet, many still see being monolingual in English as indicative of membership of an elite class. Unfortunately, it is increasingly a mark of growing stupidity on the part of parents who still cling to that warped value.
That's the message I'm taking to the West African Linguistic Society Conference at the University of Ibadan, holding between July 29 and August 2." 
Also, another commentator, Joe Okafor, described the situation as the result of inferiority complex. "This issue is borne out of inferiority complex on the part of the parents, especially the uneducated and the half-educated. I was overjoyed, the other day, when a friend and his kids from the USA got chatting in flawless Igbo. The pretty kids dazzled me with American English and Igbo Owerri dialect," he said. 
Perhaps, speaking the minds of some Nigerians who feel that the family, as a major socialising agency for the child, deserves a large chunk of the blame, one Oburubata Nnachor said, "I live in Onitsha and I have observed that parents in the town try very hard to teach their wards English, to the detriment of their mother tongue. If you must teach your children English language at home, then what are you sending them to school to learn? Igbo? 
"I think the problem is not that they teach their wards English; the problem is that they make it a rule that English should be the only acceptable form of communication in their homes. When you do that, you are invariably selling your mother tongue short and ingraining it in the mind of the child that English is superior and the mother tongue is worthless." 

*Eight Nigerian languages now extinct


The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has listed four categories of endangered languages. They are the vulnerable, definitely endangered, severely endangered and the critically endangered languages. In the first category, most children speak the language, 
which may be restricted to certain domains, while the second group refers to languages that are no longer learnt as mother tongue in the home. 
It is safe to conclude that if the current trend in Nigeria continues and more children are gradually denied the opportunity to learn and master their mother tongues, indigenous Nigerian languages stand the risk of being classified as definitely endangered. 
In a statement posted on the website of its Endangered Languages Programme, UNESCO warns that if nothing is done, about half of 6,000 plus languages spoken in the world today will disappear by the end of the 21st century. Some Nigerian languages are among the endangered species. 
The organisation added that with the disappearance of unwritten and undocumented languages, humanity would lose not only a cultural wealth, but also important ancestral knowledge embedded, in particular, in indigenous languages. 
So far, about eight Nigerian mother tongues have been listed as extinct.
They are
Ajawa (Bauchi State); 
Auyokawa (Jigawa State);
Basa-Gumna(Niger and Nasarawa states);
Gamo-Ningi (Ningi Local Government, Bauchi State); 
Kpati, Kubi, Mawa (Bauchi State) and
Teshenawa (Jigawa State) languages.
As concerned experts, including Prof. Akinwunmi Ishola, have noted, there are indications that 
many more will follow in due course. 
 Research clearly reflects a serious decline in the ability of the Nigerian school child to express himself in English. Ezeigbo blames this on the lack of exposure of the child to the mother tongue. "This is what we get for not exposing our children to the mother tongue. 
 At three years, the sound system of the mother tongue seeps into the child and he is able to master any other language easily in future,"  
It is feared that the Nigerian child may end up losing his mother tongue if nothing is done to check this trend and urgently, too. Parents, said to be the real culprits, are daily accused of sowing the seed of confusion by neglecting this all-important language need of their children or teaching them to despise the mother tongue. This may result, experts say, in the total loss of our cultural heritage.
MUST WE ALLOW OUR RICH CULTURE AND TRADITION GO EXTINCT ALL FOR CIVILIZATION?



JEALOUS BOYFRIEND SETS BABE ON FIREA 23-year-old National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member serving in Buguma area of River State has been burnt to death by her male lover, after she ended their affairs over the man’s jealous attitude. The victim, Miss Winifred Amarachi Oke, who graduated from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State with Second Class upper division, in Home Economics and was posted to River to serve, died of first degree burns she sustained in the mid night attack by her lover. The deceased was a native of Amawom, Oboro in Ikwuano Local
Government Area of Abia State. Meanwhile, the Police in Port Harcourt, River State capital, are currently questioning the suspect, whose name was given as Ogbonna, an undergraduate of Michael Okpara Univeristy, who hails from Ovim, in Isikwuato LGA of Abia State, on why he set her female lover ablaze.Winifred’s father, 53-year-old Okechukwu Onyeze Oke, told Daily Sun, amid tears, that they did not know Ogbonna, as he had not come to them to ask for the hand of their daughter in marriage. He wondered why the man should be jealous, to the point of wasting the life of their promising daughter, who they laboured for 23 years to bring up.The man stated that he learnt that whenever Ogbonna saw their daughter with anyone he would go violent and as a result, their daughter asked him to stay away from her, as she could no longer tolerate the level of jealousy he was exhibited. He said that Winifred was rushed to University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, after she was burnt in her room, where she died days after.
He told Daily Sun that the body of his daughter was transferred from the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Umuahia on Wednesday evening, August 8, with an NYSC ambulance. Mr. Oke said that Ogbonna allegedly poured petrol into the room Winifred was sleeping, through window, at about 1am and threw in a lighted match, thereby setting the room ablaze.
He said that when the fire raged, Winifred’s neigbours raised the alarms, leading to rescue efforts. When the fire was put out, the lady had been burnt from waist downwards.
According to Oke: “On July 19, somebody called my number at about some minutes to 7am, saying I should come to Port Harcourt, that my daughter had an accident. I inquired of the type of accident. He said that she had an accident in Port Harcourt. You know, she is a youth corps member I tried further to find out. He said somebody poured petrol into her apartment and set the house ablaze. “Before doing that, he (the suspect) first locked the door from outside and poured petrol into the room through the window, at about 1am and set her room ablaze. We had to go. Her mother had to go first. When we got there, she (Winifred) was critical.
She had severe burn.The fire burnt her waist down to legs and other parts of the body, including the tummy. She was taken to the UPTH by her fellow corps members. She was taken to the theatre for plastic surgery on her legs and she remained in the intensive care unit (ICU). She was on oxygen until Wednesday, July 31, 2013, when she died about 5.30am.The suspect has been apprehended by the police. Oke said the family could not understand why the suspect could go to the extent of killing Winifred, when they don’t even know him as a prospective husband to her...