The National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO), South-South Zonal Office, located at No. 51 Imgbi Road, Amarata, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, on Tuesday, 9th August, 2016, kick-started one of its major programmes, the annual long vacation Nigerian Indigenous Language Programme (NILP).

At the opening ceremony to flag off this year’s programme, the Zonal Director, Mr. Ebi Nelson Campbell, welcomed participants and staff of the Institute, and encouraged them to always create an enabling environment where indigenous language learning can take place, noting that for people to live together in peace and harmony and also to respect one another as humans, language is the tool or means.

The Zonal Director urged participant to encourage their wards to come and take part in this laudable programme, adding that what they will learn will help them in future, and regretted the situation where parents neglect to speak their native languages to their children at home.

He further explained that for a society to be at peace, people must learn one another’s language and respect their various cultures and traditions, maintaining that language is the only means of recognizing one’s tribe, which serves as tribal/national identity anywhere in the world.

Campbell explained that language enables us to preserve our rich cultural heritage, thereby ensuring that our culture does not go into extinction, and also used the event to state that languages that will be taught during the programme this year include, Izon, Urhobo, Efik, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.

The Nigerian Indigenous Language Programme (NILP) is a teaching/learning exercise organized by the Institute in the month of August every year to teach Nigerian indigenous languages in all NICO offices nationwide; and the event was attended by participants and staffers of the Institute in NICO South-South Zonal Office.

Egiobu Rex-Ogbuku

Esther Ebi Ziprekumo

Ifeoma Oputa

Corporate Affairs, NICO SSZ