Make Yoruba language a must in curriculum of all schools in S/W States – Olubadan

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By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan.
The Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Saliu Akanmu Adetunji has asked all the state governors in the South Western part of Nigeria to make the teaching and learning of Yoruba language a must in all public and private primary and secondary school in their states.
Oba Adetunji stated this in Ibadan while receiving about 15 American students under the aegis of 2016 Yoruba Group Study Abroad (YGPA) of the University of Ibadan in his Popoyemoja palace.
The royal father pointed out that this became necessary in the South West states as a way of safeguarding the future of Yoruba language which according to him is “dying by the day” and as such alarming, thereby deserving urgent moves by parents to cultivate the habits of teaching and speaking the language to their children at all time.
“I am always worried at the rate at which our language is dying by the day due to the insensivity of some of our parents who now rejected their mother tongue and also prevented their kids from speaking it,” he said.
The Olubadan lamented that both the parents and government are not doing anything “to salvage our dear language from going into extinction” saying, “I made it a standing order that official language in the palace is Yoruba and absolutely, Yoruba.”
Oba Adetunji then advised parents and guardians in the SW states to encourage their children and wards in the speaking and learning of Yoruba Language, pointing out that “any tribe whose language is dead is as well as perished”.
Leaders of the team, Prof. Moses Mabayoje of the University of Florida and Miss Tolu Ibikunle of the Yoruba language centre, University of Ibadan in their remark, declared that the visit of the students to Oba Adetunji was part of the arrangement to have a firsthand feel of the language of their love and cultural immersion.
While lauding the Olubadan over their visit to him, they urged the Olubadan to appeal to government at various level to create a place for historical collections on Ibadan, where students of Yoruba language can have access to history of the town and her heroes past.

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