United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Fourth Session
New York, 16-27 May 2005
Item 3(b): Primary Education
Date: Friday, 20 May 2005

Statement by Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, representative of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP)

Madam Chairperson,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this august assembly. I am Legborsi Saro Pyagbara from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).

The attainment of the Goal 2 target is very important for the attainment of other goals of the MDGs because it can potentially address two of the most fundamental issues that face Indigenous Peoples. That is the respect for their cultural and linguistic rights especially in this era of cultural globalization and the attempt to build monocultural societies. Cultural rights are an integral part of the human rights regime and language is an expression of cultural identity. Hence when language dies, culture also dies.

The educational models which were inherited from our departing colonialists in our respective countries are built on the legacies of colonization, imperialism and slavery and passed on to our internal colonizers. The educational policies are built on the principle of domestication and assimilation that meets the desires of our colonial masters and their collaborators who succeeded them. This education was not meant for our liberation as peoples with distinct Cosmo vision and human essence.

In my country Nigeria, the greatest casualty of the educational policies of the government has been the discrimination against the promotion of the study of Indigenous and minority peoples' languages. And for us in Ogoni, where we believe that there is a link between language, cultural diversity and biological diversity, the negative impact of this discrimination has been omnicidal.

The constitutionalization of this act of discrimination is shown in Section 55 of the 1999 Nigeria Constitution where it stated that: The business of the National Assembly shall be conducted in English and in Hausa, Ibo and Yoruba when adequate arrangements have been made therefor.

The implication of this is that the rest languages are to founder and die. The National Language Policy discriminates against Indigenous Peoples and ethnic minorities' languages to the point that it confers special status on the development and study of the languages of the three ethnic majority languages. The Policy states that "Apart from preserving the peoples' culture, the Government considers it to be in the interest of national unity that each child should be encouraged to learn one of the three majority languages other than his own mother tongue. The government considers the three major languages in Nigeria to be Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba".

Madam Chairperson, it will interest you to know that in all the years of my educational career and that of those of my generation, we have never been taught any day about our language.

Achieving Goal 2 of the declaration is such an uphill task in a country like Nigeria where the government is yet to launch a comprehensive MDGs process and the continuing lack of inclusion of Indigenous peoples in even the World Bank inspired PRSP process in the country is a cause for concern especially when this is weighed against the position of the UN Secretary General, Mr. Kofi Annan, when he said that "It is not in the United Nations that the MDGs will be achieved. They have to be achieved in each member states, by the joint efforts of their governments and people" which includes Indigenous peoples that continue to be on the fringe of educational development in their respective countries.

Last December, the UNDP had urged the government to launch the MDGs at the same time the government was launching the Nigeria's version of the Human Development Report but the government refused. This goes to show the level of MDGs implementation in Nigeria.

Madam Chairperson, in the light of the foregoing, we wish to recommend as follows:

1. That the Permanent Forum should strive to engage with the governments of Africa especially Nigeria to promote Intercultural and Bilingual Education amongst the various groups in their countries as an educational policy.

2. That UN agencies such as the World Bank, UNDP and bilateral or multilateral donor organisations should tie their assistance/aid in the educational sector to what extent the government of Nigeria elaborate the inclusion of Indigenous and minority communities in the MDGs processes

3. That the Nigerian Government should develop diversified and culturally appropriate and locally relevant curricula that build relevant qualification and take into consideration the needs of Indigenous children and youth.

Thank you.