Achieving National Integration through Language-based Institutions and Programmes

Abstract: Successive Nigerian governments, over the years, have made several efforts to enhance mutual understanding, cooperation and integration among the different geo-political and ethno-linguistic groups in the country without substantial
success. A major setback in these attempts is the fact that Nigerian people are extremely divided on many fronts, including language. This study aims at finding a solution to this malaise. National integration is the process of uniting the diverse
cultural, ethnic, religious, linguistic, and political components of a country together for the common good of its people and building up the nation. Language-based institutions, on the other hand, are those Federal Government established interuniversity institutes that are charged with the responsibility to develop, document, teach, and promote Nigerian indigenous languages. The study adopted the investigative research method and notes that the process of national integration has been vitiated due to linguistic diversity and the government's lack of political will to implement integration policies. However, these setbacks could be overcome if these institutions engage in collaborative works aimed at promoting the Indigenous languages like developing language materials together, creating multilingual dictionaries, wordlists, and texts, as well as developing tools both software and
hardware for surveys and fieldwork. It suggests that government at all levels should make language-based institutions relevant through proper and adequate funding for maximal productivity. It concludes by noting that the Nigerian people can live and
work together as one integral and united nation “though tribe and tongue may differ.”