PROFESSOR ADENIKE AKINJOBI of the Department of English, University of Ibadan (UI), celebrated her 60th birthday on Thursday, April 3, 2025. In an exclusive interview with GBENRO ADESINA, Akinjobi, a phonetician and phonologist, shared her life journey, travails and experiences, as well as her thoughts on national issues and the state of education. Excerpt:
Q: Turning 60 is a milestone. How do you feel about this new phase of life?
A: I feel good. I feel grateful to God. I feel great. I feel honoured by God because it is a privilege to go this far. So, I just want to say I appreciate God for giving me the opportunity to see today.
Q: Has it ever occurred to you that you may not have the privilege to live this long?
A: Yes, at some point in life. At a particular time in life, I had prayed to be 50 because of circumstances, and because of the way I felt. At least, if I can make it up to 50, I’ll be happy. But I thank God, I am here and I still intend to be here
Q: Can you briefly discuss your childhood, early years, and dreams while growing up?
A: I grew up to know myself as a princess from Igogo Ekiti, in Ekiti State. My father was an oba (king) for 54 years. He almost clocked 55 before he died. I grew up to see myself as a child… I never really had the opportunity to be a child per se because at age nine, I was in secondary school, at 14, I was out of secondary school. At 14, I was teaching in a primary school, at 15, I was teaching in a secondary school. I have been very focused from my childhood. I didn’t know where the inspiration came from. But I was always imagining myself in places that were not even like where I was growing up. I think my childhood was filled with dreams; dreams of what I want to be in life. Then, I will listen to broadcast, I will record broadcast, and I will recast broadcast as a child because I felt I was going to grow up to be a broadcaster. I was too serious a child as I was growing up. I had a privilege to understand life as a race even as a child.
Q: As a palace girl, can you describe what it looks like to live in the palace?
A: Beautiful setting. Many wives, of course. Every festival is our festival. There were festivities in the palace. When the traditional worshippers are having their festival, we are involved, likewise the Christians and Muslims. It was a beautiful place to grow up and then, to understand the culture of the people. I thank God, till today, I am still enmeshed with the culture of where I grew up like respect elders, respect people, be kind to people, and listen to people. Those are the things you naturally learn in the palace. Your father will be in the court, judging cases and you will be there. You will witness a lot of things. It also helps your intelligence. It helps you to know more about life. You have to live with people, and understand them. In the palace, there is no way you could sleep alone in a room. There must always be two or more people sleeping in a room. You can’t have the privilege of being alone in a room. So, you learn to understand people. You learn to tolerate people.
Q: Can you live without people around you?
A: No, I can’t. I didn’t grow up in that kind of environment. I love to see people around me. I love to relate with people. I love to indulge people. It is one of these things I got from growing up in the palace. You have to learn to indulge people because you will come across different kinds of people, and you have to learn to tolerate them. That is where the indulgence comes in. So, you don’t fight people. Even when you are done with them, you are still committed to them in a way.
Q: What role has family played in your success and personal growth?
A: My family played substantial role in my life. My father was a committed father. He loved me. He had many children but I can say with confidence that, he really loved me. He was proud of me even as a child. He encouraged me all the time. When I do well in school, he would buy things for me. He was committed as a father. Within his limit, he was able to do what he could. My mother influenced my life. My mother taught me to be strong for myself. As a child, my mother would tell you, “Owo eeyan, kii tan yan je” (your hands can’t deceive you). You must be hardworking. You don’t wait to be given and you don’t rely on people. Every opportunity you have, you must make use of your hands to your advantage. She lives that life too. She was a teacher and she would still do business. So, we grew up to be industrious especially the women among us. I’m not in business but in my own field, I try my best too. She taught us to put in our best in life and that is family for you. I grow up in an extended family. I have a sister, Doyin Oluwadipe, nee Bamiteko, who is my half-sister but they call us “the Onigogo Twins” because we were inseparable. Till today, she is still my best friend. Our mothers had to be friends because of us. My father would take us to places to showcase us to people. Till tomorrow, we are still very close. My mother is from Ikoro Ekiti. There is no way you can run away from family influence. There is late Mrs Adeyeri, my mum’s cousin. She would come to Igogo Ekiti to take me to Lagos to spend holidays with her. I love the way she was living. I was captivated by her way of life. It started giving me idea about some of the things I want in life. I saw that life was beyond what we were in the palace. I have people like that around me that really influenced me.
Q: How have your relationships – family, friends, and colleagues – shaped your journey?
A: They do in good ways. I have people I want to be like and I have people I don’t want to be like. I will give an example. There is Mrs Dupe Fasanmi. She is my mum’s cousin but I will call her my mum’s sister. She is like another mother to me. And when I was growing up, each time I was in Ikoro Ekiti to spend holiday, she would be there. She would give me little things like earrings. I would so love those things. I love her way of life, I love the way she spoke, very amiable, very quiet, and very easy going. I started following her path. She has listening ears; she is very respectful and she has a lot of things that I love. Until tomorrow, she is still my mentor. That is family.
Q: As a beautiful lady, what was your experience like with the guys then?
A: It is normal for every woman to meet different kind of men, especially if you are bright in nature. Wherever you go, you stand out and people tend to see you. The attraction will come. I have a lot of them who are my friends today. We are still talking and we are still friends. You meet men but it is not every man you come across that will have an opportunity to be with you. It doesn’t mean that you can’t be friends. I had enough attention. For many men, I was too serious.
Q: Who were the biggest influences in your life, and how did they shape your journey?
A: I am going to be talking about my mentors now. I will talk about late Professor Airen Amayo, for instance. He was my teacher in UI. He was a phonetician and phonologist in the department. He saw my interest in that field and he took interest in my case. He was always interested in how well I was doing. After the first semester, I almost dropped out of the Master’s class, because I had a problem, which I wouldn’t want to divulge. At the time, I was teaching at the College of Education, Osiele, Abeokuta. I couldn’t cope with the sponsoring of the programme anymore. So, I stopped coming. There was no phone. He sent someone from Ibadan to look for me with the instruction that I should come to see him. I came and broke down in his office, crying. He told me that no matter what I’m passing through, I must finish my programme because I was the best student in his class. I came back to complete the Master’s programme. He was the one that brought me to UI. May he rest in peace. He was dying. He knew he was terminally ill. He told them at the department that he knew the person to replace him. The department sent someone to me to bring me to Ibadan for an interview, which was arranged within two days. I went for the interview. Some other people came too. I did well. The man had the brightest laughter in that room where the interview was conducted. Till tomorrow, that laughter still rings in my mind. That was how I came to UI. I remember, we once met at a conference and he took me round. He showed me to Professor Ayo Banjo, Ayo Bamgbose, and Professor Jowitt. He told them, look at this lady very well because you will know her soon. So, he prophesied into my life and it came to pass. Each time I remember him; my soul blesses his spirit. I will not forget Professor Francis Egbokhare, who rescued me when there was nobody to supervise my PhD in the Department of English. There was no phonetician and phonologist. Late Amayo was my supervisor for the Master and PhD. Unfortunately, he died. The time for my programme got exhausted and the PG school told me it was either I finish in six months or my programme is terminated. I choose to start all over again. That was how I ended up at the Department of Linguistics. That was how Professor Egbokhare came in. He was very supportive. That was about the time I lost my husband. He would take my children, his wife, Dr Yinka Egbokhare would take my children and take care of them for me. When people came to say sorry, we heard about what happened to you. Egbokhare would say, please leave this woman alone. Let her do her work and I finished to time.
Q: When did you lose your husband?
A: 2001 and I completed the programme in 2004. Till tomorrow, he comes to my mind. He is a fantastic mentor. He trained me to be who I am today. That is another person I will not forget. Talking about work, I have a lot of them in my work place; Professor Lekan Oyeleye, and Professor Niyi Osundare, who encouraged me in my creative writing. Osundare would take my drama text and read them and give me encouragement. Professor Aderemi Raji-Oyelade is my uncle in the department. I have a lot of them in the department and I look up to them too.
Q: So, you finished your PhD programme in record time?
A: Yes. I was determined to complete my PhD. I finished in record time. I converted the time I should have been mourning to working. I worked too hard in 2001. In 2001, I completed four of the six chapters of my PhD. In 2001, I published two papers and one creative writing.
Q: This is a lesson to students these days dwelling on their challenges and giving untenable excuses as to why they can’t finish in record time?
A: It is not that those excuses are not tenable. But in the academia, no excuse. It is either you are doing it or you are not doing it. If somebody dies, people will sympathise with you. When I came back after my late husband was buried, some colleagues were helping with my lectures, and some helped to grade. I went to my HOD and I asked him, when it is time to promote me, will you help me too? He was staring at me. Some colleagues were almost crying. I told them to let me start teaching. The first day I taught at the faculty, people were pretending to walk by to find out if I was still sane. I tell my students that it is not that challenges shouldn’t keep you grounded but you must not allow it. There was a case of a 400-level girl whose father died and she was brought to me by three people. I said they should step out. I closed the door and sat her down. I told her my story. I said nobody can help as much as you can help yourself. I said people will help you and give you 45 marks. They will not give 60 or 70. Your father will not be proud of you. I said go and manage to do your exam very well and stop going around because you will leave here with the result that is unpresentable. How many people will you start explaining to that I have this kind of result because my father died? She was very happy. She wept in my office. I wept with her. I cleaned her face and then she left. She kept in touch with me even after she left UI. The point is whether you give excuses or not, your PhD will not write itself. Your project will not write itself. No lecturer will help you write your exam. You need to just be strong.
Q: Looking back, did you ever imagine you would be where you are today?
A: I have always been focused. I have always wanted to succeed in life. At a particular point in life, I had distractions. I shouldn’t call it distraction because they also helped me in life. I was into creative writing. At a point. I had a drama troupe and my first play was on television in 1990. I wrote a play. I directed the play. It was on NTA Abeokuta in 1990. It was used to celebrate the Independence Day. At a particular point, I was very close to being in the film industry. Somehow, something will always push me back to academics. At a particular point, I went into documentary making, academic film making and all those little little things that won’t take much of my time. If it is about where I am today, the moment I joined academic, I knew I was going to be a professor. I only needed God to confirm it and God confirmed it.
Q: How many creative books have you created?
A: I have about three. I have one that is complete but not published yet. I have Family Secrets which was a runner up winner of the ANA/NDDC prize in 2005. I have Rags to Riches and Mirage. The one that I am about to publish is Naked Dance.
Q: What about books on phonology?
A: I have books on spoken English. I have two books on phonetics and phonology that are almost ready. They were supposed to be part of my 60th birthday celebration. I was going to produce four books together. I ended up not finishing them. I am still going to launch the four books this year by God’s grace.
Q: Can you expatiate on the challenges that you have faced in life?
A: That can take two days but I will make it brief. The first challenge was that my late husband was my best friend. Before we started dating, we were friends for two years.
Q: Where did you meet?
A: We met at the Federal College of Education, Osiele, Abeokuta. We never knew we were going to marry. We were closed. He understood me and I understood him. We were practically inseparable. When we got married, we were not that typical couple. We were friends. I lost my best friend. I lost a great man because he was a very responsible man. He was very clean. I lost something that was really costly, and invaluable. We had two children. They were two and four at the time. There was a challenge of carrying on being a single parent, particularly with my job. In a way, I was able to work around that. I also got support from family. Even, distance relations were very useful to me at that time. At a particular time, I discovered that coming home was a problem. I am a very homely person. I can be in this house for one year and I won’t miss being out there. That has to stop because coming home became a kind of problem. Sometimes, I would put my children in the car. I would drive round UI. We would just be driving around. Just trying to avoid going home. Along the line, my children started to grow and I find very good friends in them. Today, they are my best friends. When I need pieces of advice, I will call them. We have no secret. The challenges were much but the Lord helped me to surmount them.
Q: Can you speak to what it means to be a single mother?
A: The first challenge was how close he was to all of us. When I was supposed to be mourning, I was more worried about my children because I knew they were very close to him, especially my first son. Also, there are times you have to take decisions and you need to ask somebody. That is why we have two parents so that the two of you can decide. You can talk to each other. That was not an opportunity I had. So, I was taking a lot of decisions by myself. But the Lord blessed me with good children. Even when I go to look for them in school, when other children are on the field and their parents are looking for them, my children will be where I can find them. I think the Lord helped me to be a good parent.
Q: You must be very young when you lost your husband and you never thought of remarrying?
A: If you have two kids with you and you’re an academic, it is going to be a very tough decision for you to decide you want to remarry. One, I didn’t want anybody to come between my children and I. There was no way you will allow someone and they will not come between you and your children. I want to face that alone. I don’t want anybody to remind me I helped you to train your children. Again, the job itself is demanding. The kind of job we do, if you are focused on getting to the pinnacle of your career, it is going to be tough for you to take that decision. You know, it is not a decision of a single man marrying a single woman. It is going to be a woman with two children marrying another man who probably would have his own children too. I couldn’t cope with that.
Q: What advice do you have for women who find themselves in your shoes?
A: I will just tell them to try their best, and be focused. The worst thing that can happen to a woman who is a widow or who is a divorcee with children is for the children not to turn out well. It is a life of regret. You must make sure that the greater part of your focus is on your children. That is the first piece of advice I have for them. You think less of yourself. If you are going to think about yourself, then, you may need to take some decisions. Like dropping your children with the relations of the late father because it gives you more time. I think if you really love yourself and you want to be proud of yourself, you should focus more on the development of your children and on being able to take care of yourself. Men abuse their position if you’re not financially stable. A woman who is a single parent, who is not financially stable is just going to be all over the place, but would be at the mercy of people. You will beg people, you will be victimised, and you will be open to a lot of abuses. But if you work hard and you can take care of yourself and deny yourself of certain things, you will get there. You can’t afford to want to be like other people, be a party goer, wear the best dresses, best shoes, or competing with people who are not competing with you. Face your life, because, one day, you will open your wardrobe and you won’t know the last time you wore some clothes. There will be a time when you will open your wardrobe and you will be wondering, should I wear this again?
Q: Who are your two children today?
A: The Lord is helping them. They are doing well. My older son is a Pharmacist, and the other one is a Physiologist. The first one is into tech and the second one is a videographer and they are doing well to the glory of God.
Q: What are some of the achievements you are most proud of in your career and personal life?
A: I am very happy that I made the position of professor. That is one thing I am proud of. I didn’t have the opportunity to go to many places but I’ve been to a few places across the world. One of the places I have been to that I am very proud of is Harvard University. I applied as a visiting scholar. On merit, I was asked to come. I was at its department of linguistics for about four months. That was where I learnt more about speech acoustic. A lot of things I learnt there still affect me. Even, when I deal with my Master’s students, I’m still with that mentality. I came back sharper than I was. It is one of the achievements. On personal level, I am proud of my children. I’m proud that the Lord helped them to be who they are today. I’m proud of where they are and I am proud of the plan the Lord has for them. Personally, I think, relatively, I’m proud of myself because I think the Lord strengthen me to achieve. I’m not the best achiever in life; I’ve left some footprints on the sand of time in my field. I’ve opened up new areas of research. Even my PhD opened up a totally new area of research in phonology. Subsequently, I’ve always tried to look for areas where I can make an impact. I think I am also proud of myself.
Q: Was there any moment when you felt like giving up and what kept you going?
A: Yes, many moments I felt like given up because I I lost my best friend. He was my husband. I got married at 31 and I lost my husband at 36.
Q: What happened? An accident?
A: Yes, it was an accident. At that point, I would’ve given up but for my children. I didn’t want my children to suffer. I didn’t want my children to be at the mercy of people. I knew it was tough because I was just starting a career. The salary wasn’t fantastic but I knew if I was here, they stand a better chance of being okay than if I leave. It was a time I knew that people can mourn to death. I have seen people who have mourned to death. Each time I remember them, I was always strong for myself. I struggle to be strong at that point. At some points in the career too, on this job, you feel like given up. Most time, the status will not go hand in hand with the kind of things you get. And the job will not give you the opportunity to do other things if you are committed. People on this job, who can do other things, are people who are not committed. If you are the kind of people that is committed, you will not have the time to do any extra thing. So, at some point, I tried to leave. But in a way, I never had the strength to go. The love for the profession keeps pulling me back. At particular points, you get really tired. People like us have gone through a lot that we didn’t even diagnose. Today, I am down and tomorrow, I am up. I give myself that courage, Nike stand up and keep going because you can’t stop. I have had moments like that but I’m always a winner.
Q: Are there any regrets or things you wish you had done differently?
A: Honestly, nothing. But I would have just felt a little better if my job was more rewarding. I am a committed person to this job. I love mentoring students, teaching, and research. But the reward is not commendable. So, if I had an opportunity, I would say, treat academics better in Nigeria. If the profession can be more rewarding, I will be happier.
Q: How do you balance your personal and professional life?
A: I tilt more to my professional life. I work too hard. I will not advise anybody to work the way I work. I hardly have the time to rest and recreate. I am not the ideal sociable person, who is out there at party or doing this and that. I am usually at home.
Q: Could you mention some of your mentees who are doing very well?
A: I have many of them, I’ll start with my PhD students. Unfortunately, I lost my first PhD student. I have Dr Rotimi Oladipupo, who is an Associate Professor at Redeemer’s University, Dr Julianah Ajoke Akindele, who is an Associate Professor at Osun State University. I am waiting for the announcement of their chairs any time from now. I have 14 PhD. They are all in different universities doing well. Some of our professors in UI, I thought them at 200 level upward. I can also refer to them as many mentees. Demola Lewis just became a professor about a month ago.
Q: Can you tell us about your hobbies?
A: I dance a lot. Go and look for me on TikTok. I love oldies: Ebenezer Obey, Orlando Owoh, and Sunny Ade. I dance a lot because I love exercise. It is one of the things that has helped me in life. If you have a life style, that makes you sit at a place most of the time, you need to find a way to exercise. So, I take my walk and when I come back, I dance. I used to play table tennis a lot. I was very good at it. But for quite a while, I have not been playing it. It is a thing I am planning to bring back to my life. I love reading. I watch movies.
Q: If you could go back and give advice to your younger self, what would it be?
A: I will say don’t take life too seriously.
Q: What are some of the most important life lessons you have learnt over the years?
A: Humans will teach you lessons. I have met a lot of people. I have met grateful people. I have met ungrateful people. Both will bring you good lessons. The grateful ones will give you the lessons that when you sow, you reap. The ungrateful ones will bring you the lessons that you will not reap from everything you sow.
Q: If you could be remembered for one thing, what would you want it to be?
A: I love to be remembered by how well my children must have done. The big achievements they must have had in life. This is followed by my mentees, all the people I have had contract with, my old students, my PhD students, and my master’s students. I want to be remembered by the great things that they are able to achieve in life.
Q: What do you have to say regarding the advancements in technology, such as AI and speech recognition, influencing the way phonetics and phonology are taught today?
A: I think technology has really helped us. Let’s start with access to materials. When people like us were on our Master and PhD programmes, we were using just hard copies of books and we didn’t have access to the best and the latest materials. For instance, I needed to use a speech laboratory and my supervisor advised me to travel to the East, where I could find just one lecturer with the kind of the equipment that could do the speech analysis for me. But I was lucky for the support I got from Dr Tunde Adegbola, an engineer and a Yoruba technologist, who made the Yoruba keyboard. You can see technology made things easier now. Now, you can direct your students to go online to look for some things that ordinarily they wouldn’t have had access to. Even, in the teaching of speech, you can help your students connect with the first language users. You can send them to websites where they can have access to sounds produced by first language users, not sounds that second language users struggle to teach. We are all second language users. No matter how much you must have worked on yourself, you are still a second language users. So, technology has helped us. It has helped to solve the problem of modeling because we can now use technology to model speech, which is really fantastic. AI is good in generating materials but, I have always told people to engage AI. Don’t just take everything in, hook, line and sinker, because the problem with AI is that at times, it might bring to you a wrong thing. I tell my students if they use AI, there is a tendency they might be wrong. That is why when I ask something from AI, I engage it. Another thing again for people in the Humanities is that we need to continue to engage our intellect and minds. We can’t rely on AI totally because we are supposed to be the power house of thoughts. AI is not suppose to think for us. So, we should know the mid-way between technology and whatever we are doing.
Q: How do you view the impact of indigenous languages on spoken English in Nigeria?
A: A lot of impact. That is why we have Nigerian English. That is why we have new Englishes. In countries where English is not the first language, we have the new Englishes. There is a Nigerian English which is the variety of the new Englishes. There is also Yoruba English, Igbo English, Hausa English, Ibibio English, and Efik English. As many languages as we have in Nigeria, we have different types of influences coming in to the use of English. So, it really impacts the use of English. You know, before, all these things were called interferences and errors. Today, we don’t call them errors anymore. Once they are consistent, we call them variations. There is no way we can avoid the impact of the native or the indigenous languages on the English language.
Q: Are you saying that these Englishes are standard?
A: Nigerian English is English as spoken in Nigeria. There is Yoruba English with its peculiarities, and local colours. The one we assume to be Nigerian English are those things that are common to all of them. There are some sounds most Nigerians can’t produce. We will take that as Nigerian English. And there are local colours. Local colours like Yoruba saying I am going to the “su’ (zoo), local colours like Hausa saying something like, producing “Pa”, where they supposed to produce “fa”, local colours like vowel harmony in Igbo, where an English word is produced with the vowel sounds harmonising in different segments in Igbo, which is typically an Igbo language feature. So, these are all the things we call local colours that will make Yoruba English a sub-variety of Nigerian English. Igbo English a sub-variety, Efik English a sub-variety, Ibibio English a sub-variety and all the other Englishes.
Q: How do we place Pidgin English?
A: Pidigin English is not English anymore. It is called Naija now. Pidgin is pidgin. It is a language on its own. The latest development about Pidgin is that it is no longer viewed as a sub-variety of English. It is no longer considered as English. It is standing on its own as a language. The latest name is Naija. Professor Francis Egbokhare is working very diligently in that area and it is called Naija.
Q: Are you saying that it is now wrong to say Pidgin English?
A: I won’t say it is wrong. There is nothing wrong in academic. You will still see somebody telling you there is Pidgin English. That is why we are academics because we have the right to argue. But today, I know that English has been detached from Pidgin.
Q: What do you think about making Pidgin English a national language as being advocated?
A: I don’t know. I don’t think we all speak Pidgin. The idea is that Pidgin is easy for people to comprehend. But you actually still need a little education to comprehend Pidgin. So, if Pidgin is made a national language, everybody will be compelled to learn and speak it. I don’t even know if there is ever going to be that day.
Q: What happens to the indigenous languages that we have? Why is it difficulty for the Nigerian government to make these languages national languages just like what is obtainable in countries like Canada and South Africa with many national languages?
A: I don’t think I know any other country in the whole world with as many languages as Nigeria. And I think it is one of the problems we have. Language is key. It is very important even to the survival of a nation. Where we are today in Nigeria that things seem not to be going well, I will still take it back to language. Everybody is keen about their language. We are keen about our tribe’s men. There are too many languages in Nigeria. So, for one to be chosen as a national language will cause problem. I carried out research around 2001. I tried to find out about language chauvinism, to know who would say, okay, I prefer another language to be the national language in Nigeria. I discovered that Igbo felt Igbo should be. Most Yoruba felt they were cool with English. The Hausa feel it should be Hausa. If you look at it very well, today, majority of the people feel Hausa should be the national language. I think the reason they feel so is because they have dominated in terms of governance and people feel, maybe they will do better. For me, I don’t think we will ever leave English.
Q: Why not experimenting with the three major languages that we have as national languages?
A: This experiment was done in school. It didn’t work. At a particular time, children who were Yoruba were supposed to learn either Igbo or Hausa. Hausa were supposed to learn Yoruba or Igbo. Just three major languages. Yet, it never worked. I think there is a lot to language issue in Nigeria because we have too many languages. We can’t continue to forget those we call the minorities anymore. All the speakers we think they are not existing are existing. Sometimes, I think, probably this is where the Tower of Babel was built!
Q: What is your suggestion?
A: We should develop our local languages. I don’t see the prospect of a national language. The reason is that there will be arguments and counter-arguments.
Q: Do we have national language?
A: I don’t think so. English is the official language.
Q: In your opinion, are we doing enough to preserve and study Nigerian languages?
A: We are not. I am very worried about Nigerian languages. People talk about language endangerment. I know that Nigerian languages can’t all perish. I don’t think we have more literate people in Nigeria than illiterates. I think we still have a lot of people who are not schooled and they speak their indigenous languages. One fact is that we need to promote our local languages. We made a lot of mistakes in the past, thinking that referring to our local languages as vernacular was a great thing, thinking English should be the only language to learn when a child can learn many languages. Let your children learn English, and local languages. Let them be good in Italian and French languages, because the more languages a child learn, the better and the more the opportunities that will be opened up to this child. So, it is good to allow your children to learn as many languages as they can learn. Don’t allow your children not learn your local language. There is somebody on TikTok. I think the man is based in US. He is always talking about the sciences, the terminologies. One thing I discover is that at my age, most of the things he would mention despite the fact that I think I am as stride in Linguistics, it will be difficult for me to pick it quickly. And I am a Yoruba person. I speak Yoruba. As parents, we need to work on ourselves so that our children will understand our local languages and it will make the learning easier. One major problem we have in Nigeria is that we have children who speak English that is not standard. And these children would pretend they don’t speak the local languages. They are stranded. That is the way I see it. It is not as if English is super good and it is not as if, they can’t speak the local languages. So, you should speak both English and your local languages to the Nigerian children.
Q: Do you believe that Yoruba Language can go into extinction?
A: I don’t think so.
Q: Can it relocate?
A: It has relocated already. When I was in the US, I was approached to teach Yoruba to some people. The fact is that, you know there are cities across the world where Yoruba is spoken, even though in its affected form. But it is still Yoruba. Some Chinese came to learn Yoruba. Some descendants of Negroes in Brazil speak Yoruba. The fact is that we should not allow our languages to go into extinction. I don’t think Yoruba will go into extinction because there is some kinds of renaissance. It is quiet. It is not really like people are going out and saying we have to start speaking Yoruba. When you go online, you will see people teaching their children Yoruba, even people living in the US are teaching their children Yoruba and bringing it to public space. This generation is fantastic. They seem to be bringing back a lot of things that we have lost. I have a feeling that things will get better.
Q: As a woman in the academia, what does it take to succeed?
A: Diligence, commitment, and focus. I have had students who are very brilliant, I have known people who are very brilliant, who are in academic and are not doing very well. Your brilliance will not write your papers or carry out your research. You need to combine your intelligence with diligence to be a good academic.
Q: What is your teaching philosophy?
A: To see the best in my students. I am a trained teacher. I am astride in three different areas. My first Degree was in Education, English Education from the University of Ilorin, my second Degree, M.A. English, and PhD in Linguistics, both in UI. The training I had in Education has not left me. I want to teach my students to know it. For every student that fails my course, I ask myself the question, if I did well. A teacher who has many students failing his/her course needs to ask that question, am I doing well? Your target should not be to fail your students. It is for them to know it so that they can pass. Certification is to confirm that they know it. I think my philosophy is to see the best in my students, to see my students perform well.
Q: What are your thoughts on the state of education in Nigeria?
A: I think we could do better. Things aren’t as good as it was anymore. The environment is no longer conducive for learning: the classrooms, and the faculties. I’m talking about where I teach right now, its environment and the students. The students, are they comfortable? Are they eating well? Are they okay? Are they living in good hostels? All these things will make a good environment for learning. For me, as a teacher, am I comfortable in the classroom? Do I have all the facilities I need? If I need a lab, do I have a working lab? All these would be part of the things to be considered when you are talking about the state of education. Looking at things the way they are presently, I think we could do better.
Q: What about the condition of service for lecturers?
A: I think it could be better too. I said it the other time. The remuneration is not encouraging. Except you have that conscience that is very strong, you might not be focused. You might be thinking of other things that could feed your family. If you get a salary that can’t feed your family, will you then say I want to be good on this job and you let your family go without feeding? I think, there should be consideration for good remunerations for teachers generally. Teachers are the worst hit in this country when it comes to poor payments.
Q: What advice would you give to young scholars in the academia?
A: As I said before, be diligent, be focused, be prayerful. You also need prayers. People want to be diligent and they fall ill and they can’t do anything anymore. Or they want to be diligent and they don’t have access to the things that they need. That is where the place of God is important. So, be prayerful if you believe in God, be diligent as a human being, you can’t be perfect, keep striving for the best and always make sure that you affect the people you teach. We send them out in batches, let them leave with that kind of mind that you tried your best for them. I am not talking about leniency in terms of passing all of them but make sure that you try to encourage them, try to lift them up and try your best.
Q: If you were to see President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Minister of Education, what will you tell them concerning Nigerian education?
A: If I were to see the President and the Minister, I will tell them that we should focus on developing the educational system of Nigeria. Revamping; let us even start with revamping because developing is like it has got to a stage but revamping is like this thing has gone really bad and we have to bring it back to where it used to be and from there, we can push forward. A lot of things have gone wrong. Put students in good environment to learn, encourage workers. If somebody come to work looking sad, looking depress, that person can never give the best. Educational system determines what happens in a country. That is the mistake we make here. All the developed countries, they get things right from the education. All these studies or these researches we carry out and we leave on the tables are supposed to go to somewhere where they will be used to develop the country. So, there is a total break, like a partition, between the government and the academic. Look at it, we are talking about the Nigerian English, it is not standard. Nigerian English is not standard. The government needs to have the Academy where all the studies people like us had carried out will be documented and that is at the point that the government can say we have decided to standardise Nigerian English. That has happened in India and in some other places. The government has to make sure that the studies we carry out are useful because the town and the gown must meet. If they don’t meet, no progress.
