Stakeholders have commended the reintroduction of mother tongue in the nation’s educational curricula by the Federal Government, saying the move was beneficial to efforts aimed at reviving the speaking of the Ibani language among the people of Bonny and Opobo Kingdoms in Rivers State.

Coordinator of the Ibani Egere Dawu Ogbo (Let’s Speak Ibani Language Club), Herbert Pepple, who made this call during the launch of the Club on Saturday, December 3, 2022 at The Messenger’s Chapel, Bishop Gabriel Pepple Road, Bonny in Rivers State, called for support to achieve the objective.

The Ibani Language is the lingua franca of the Ibani ethnic group, a subset of the Ijaw ethnic nationality which is spread across the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

He said parents and guardians of Ibani extraction across the globe should prioritize the learning and speaking of the language by their families and take advantage of the various resources made available by the Let’s Speak Ibani Club.  

According to Pepple, who is one of the sons of the now demised Anglican Bishop of the Niger Delta, late Bishop Gabriel Pepple, Let’s Speak Ibani Club is an initiative by well-meaning sons and daughters of Bonny and Opobo Kingdoms, explaining that its beneficiary focus inculpates both parents and children.

“The Bonny society currently in this 2022 is at crossroads, historically, culturally and, maybe, socially. Bonny Island is becoming more cosmopolitan, where it is a mixture of different languages and ethnic groups.”

“The Ibani language needs to be back and spoken by its owners. Otherwise, in the midst of all these ethnic groups and languages, Ibani will suffer another divergence, another decadence.”

On her part, Benedicta Finapiri, one of the tutors at the club, regretted that the Ibani people appear to undervalue their language and culture, a situation, which she said was amplified by the failure of the past generations to transmit the language to their offspring, thus creating a situation where the Igbo language is now being associated with the Ibani people.

“We have come to realize that despite our population, our language is almost becoming extinguished because most people look at it with levity. Our parents didn’t teach us and we are assuming other people’s language to be our own, like the Igbo.”

“Our major focus now is to bring back the Ibani language and to get parents and children to become resource people in the speaking and teaching of Ibani as an indigenous language.

The lead tutor in the Club, Warifagha Green informed that the agenda was to engage the kids and groom from the cradle with a view to raising an adult generation of Ibani language experts, assuring that the initiative was bound to succeed.

“I assure you that this beginning today will metamorphose into something great. Our intention is to pick children of 10 years, 15 years, and so on and groom the best. We will groom the best and they will become resource persons tomorrow at a tender age; that’s our focus.”   

Another official, Jolly Jumbo called for a holistic and all-encompassing effort to reinvent the wheel in the drive to revive the Ibani language, stressing the need to domesticate the language at home and in every facet of life.  

“Let all of us speak the language because from the elders, they can learn faster, when the children learn faster, they will be speaking it at home the adults too who understand little, it will remind them most of things they have forgotten. They will all join hands and speak the language.”    

Chaplain to Let’s Speak Ibani Club, Rev. Canon Edward Hart emphasized the importance of Ibani language as a mother tongue, pointing out that the effort at resurgence of the language was to reposition it as a tool for glorifying God and entrenching a cultural identity for the present and coming generations.

“This Ibani Egere we were born with it. Some of us have abandoned our language but now, we want to revive it so that our children and children-children would know that we have a dialect when you look at the Ibani language and the English language it looks alike. And it is a very beautiful language.”

“We want to revive it and it is our earnest prayer that this language of ours we will use it within ourselves. And when we’re in the midst of people we speak it so that people will know that we own a beautiful language. Time has come when we will use our language to glorify God.”