RECONCILING THE TWO WEST AFRICAS: MANAGING ETHNIC AND LINGUAL DIVERSITY FOR REGIONAL INTEGRATION
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In international politics, language is core in inter-state trust and relationship,
and the West African region (or sub-region), which is multi-ethnic, culturally
plural and bi- or multilingual in imported languages, may never evolve an integrated
region if the diversity is not converted from source of disconnections to
source of connections. At best, West Africans have regarded themselves as precolonial
kinsmen but post-colonial strangers as a result of the factor of language
barriers created in the years of colonial rule. The Yoruba, Ewe, Ashante,
Mende, Temne and many more had similarities of languages and cultures and
led a regular life of communal conflict and cooperation until the arrival of the
French, English, Portuguese and Germans, who established sharp misunderstandings
and divisions along the lines of European lingua franca. From a participation-
observation experience and perspective, and having consulted literature
and government records on futile integration efforts, the study, adopting a
functionalist model for analysis, submits that the differences have led to alienation
among West Africans since independence, and ECOWAS, despite its spirited
commitment to regional integration by the protocol on free movement across
the borders, has faced brick-walls from human and social forces engendered by
language barriers. This paper looks beyond the artificial linguistic barriers
inherent in the bilingual or multilingual character of West Africa, by exploring
the richness of the linguistic diversity to advance the cause of regional integration.
The paper strongly advocates that local languages spoken across most of the West African states such as Hausa, Mandingo, Peul and Yoruba be taught
in primary and secondary schools, while ECOWAS leaders should agree on
making English, French and Portuguese compulsory in all secondary schools
and higher institutions in their respective countries. These will help demystify
and dismantle the artificial linguistic barriers created by the accident of colonialism
and make the formal and informal instruments, including ECOWAS
towards integration, more functional.
Keywords
JA Political science (General)