Ex-Presidential candidate advocates use of indigenous languages to address challenges

EX-PRESIDENTIAL candidate of Mass Action Joint Alliance (MAJA), Prof Mercy Olufunmilayo Adesanya, has urged Nigerian leaders to ensure every citizen enjoy their rights and protections as enshrined in the Constitution and harness the power of indigenous languages in addressing challenges.

She also stressed the need to end the vices plaguing the country and identified some of the societal ills as corruption, insecurity, terrorism, banditry, which she noted had been leading to retrogression, lack of peace, unity and progress in the country.

Adesanya who is of the Department of English and Communication Arts, Faculty of Humanities,  spoke at the 57th Inaugural Lecture of Ignatius Ajuru University of Education (IAUE), Port Harcourt, Rivers State according to a statement on Tuesday.

The Vice Chancellor, IAUE, Prof Ugochukwu  Onuchuku,  presided over the lecture, which was titled: “Leveraging the Transformative Potential of Language on Nigeria’s Societal Challenges: A Case Study of Audio Bible.”

Members of the Senate and other members of the university community as well as other invited guests, friends, family members and acquaintances attended the event.

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Adesanya said: “Languages, especially the Nigerian indigenous languages have the transformative potential to address Nigeria’s societal challenges.”

According to the don, Bishop Ajayi Crowther was the pioneer and father of linguistics in Nigeria and Africa, saying that the bishop was responsible for creating the Yoruba alphabets from English alphabets, compiling a Yoruba dictionary and writing many books, including, “A brief History of the Yoruba.”

Adesanya said: “Nigerian indigenous languages are vital to the country’s cultural, social, economic, and political development. Their preservation and promotion are essential for maintaining cultural diversity, improving education, building communities, promoting economic growth and fostering national pride. I hereby present the Audio Bible in Nigerian indigenous languages as having the transformative potential to solve Nigeria’s societal challenges.

“Faith Comes By Hearing [FCBH] giving the apps for free, is an international Christian organization with a vision to providing the Audio/Video Bible to the peoples of the world in their heart languages [mother tongue] for the purpose of engagement with the word of God for the transformation of lives and communities.

She propounded Artificial Intelligence Linguistics (AIL), as a new branch of Applied linguistics.

Adesanya said: “AI Linguistics as a sub field of Applied Linguistics would be rich and would focus on the interaction between computers and human language. It would involve the development of algorithms and statistical models that would enable computers to process, understand, and generate natural language data.

According to the statement, Adesanya is a don, an administrator and has held many administrative positions within and outside the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, including being the former Director, General Studies, Entrepreneur and Skills Acquisition of the University, among others. She is currently a professor in the Department of English and Communication Arts.

“Her contributions to the field of Applied Linguistics is invaluable proposing and propounding as an Applied Linguist,  further studies in Linguistics and Artificial intelligence (AI), the study of AI Linguistics (AIL) as a branch of Applied Linguistics; as well as, the study of  AI Biblical Linguistics  (AIBL) as a further extension of the AIL branch of Applied Linguistics,” the statement added.