‘Exclusive teaching of Yoruba in schools’: Igbo women threaten to sue Lagos State government

The Igbo Women Assembly (IWA), a pressure group, has vowed to drag the Lagos State Government to court over its legislation for the exclusive teaching of the Yoruba language in state-owned schools.

The National President of IWA, Mrs Nneka Chimezie, made the threat at a news briefing in Umuahia on Thursday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that IWA is affiliated with Ohanaeze Ndigbo, an apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation.

Chimezie said that the group was worried over such legislation in a cosmopolitan state as Lagos.

According to her, such a law is not proper because the government is aware that the state harbours many other tribes.

“They should make it open—Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba—should be taught,” she said.

The IWA president, however, hailed the Yoruba for preserving their language.

She called on the Igbo sons and daughters to join IWA in the campaign to stop the Igbo language from going into extinction.

She said that the group was organising an event to celebrate the Igbo language on February 21, in commemoration of the United Nations’ Mother Tongue Day.

Chimezie said the event, which would hold in Umuahia, would bring together many prominent sons and daughters of Igboland to discuss the way forward for the language.

“We are coming together to talk about our language, rob minds to see how we can stop our language from going into extinction.

“We are going to have a roundtable, after which we will come up with a communique,” the IWA president said.

She called on Gov. Charles Soludo of Anambra to checkmate the activities of Agunechemba—a vigilance group—and stop the extrajudicial killings in the state.

“When they make arrests, they should hand the suspects over to the police for proper investigation and prosecution rather than killing them.

“Agunechemba has no right to arrest and kill, and there has been too much bloodletting and killing of our youths in the South-East,” Chimezie said. (NAN)