The National Institute for Cultural Orientation (NICO) on Tuesday commenced a two-month intensive indigenous languages classes for 80 police officers and men working in Enugu State.
Declaring the classes open in Enugu, acting Executive Secretary of NICO, Mr Louis Eriomala, said being able to understand, speak, and write in indigenous languages of people would make policing work easy for police personnel nationwide.
Eriomala, represented by Mr Nnaemeka Nwajagu, Head, NICO Enugu State Office, noted that mastering an indigenous language would help to reduce disagreements when police personnel deal with members of the public.
“The essence of understanding, speaking and writing indigenous languages by police personnel is to build harmony, reduce disagreements, promote peace and unity among diverse languages and ethnic groups in the country,’’ he said.
He noted that the participants in the free two-month intensive indigenous languages lecture classes, which would offer Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba languages, would be given NICO certificate after completion of the course.
The executive secretary thanked the Enugu State Police Command for their partnership with NICO and helping the institute to promote Nigeria indigenous languages and by extension culture.
Earlier, Chief Eddy Okoro, Executive Secretary of Enugu State Council for Art and Culture, lauded NICO for its resourcefulness in putting such educational programme meant to close the gap between residents of the state and police personnel.
Okoro noted that Nigeria had continued to suffer as a country due to adaptation of the colonial master’s culture.
He added that Nigerians only copied British culture and failed to copy her technology and innovation in order to fast track the country’s development.
“If you do not cherish and understand your culture as a person; you are yet to understand yourself.
“Language is highly important to military and Para-military organisations as well as traders due to their high migration tendencies,’’ he said.
Igwe Obiora Igwesi, Traditional Ruler of Obofia Community in Enugu South Local Government Area, advocated compulsory learning of Igbo language in all schools in South-East to ensure Igbo language did not go into extinct.
“But, if you can learn Hausa and Yoruba languages here in Enugu, it will be an added advantage to you especially when you move to other parts of the country.
“Nigerians should be proud of their culture especially their indigenous languages,’’ Igwesi advised.
In a goodwill message, Commissioner of Police in Enugu State, Mr Sulaiman Balarabe, lauded NICO “for selecting Nigeria Police in the myriads of organisations for its indigenous language learning programme meant to build bridge of understanding among Nigerians’’.
Balarabe, represented by Mr Ebere Amaraizu, Police Public Relations Officer, called for more collaboration between police and NICO to bring solutions to cultural and languages barriers encountered during policing as the command adopts community-policing strategies.
TBI Africa said the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that NICO is a parastatal under the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture.
