PERCEPTION OF NIGERIANS ON FEASIBILITY OF USING ENGLISH LANGUAGE FOR NATIONAL IDENTITY AND INTEGRATION IN HETEROLINGUAL AND MULTICULTURAL NIGERIA

The objective of this study is to establish the perception of Nigerians on the feasibility of adopting a non-native language as a tool for enhancing national identity and integration in Nigeria. Nigeria is not only heterolingual but also characterized by a complex system that depicts divergent cultures among the members of the different enthnolinguistic groups. This thus necessitates integration that would foster unity. In addition, the issue of national identity is one of the burdens of Nigerians living in Africa and by extension in the diaspora. In order to achieve the primary objective of this study, a researcher-made questionnaire was developed and administered to some five hundred (500) literate Nigerians between September 2015 and September 2016 in all the six geo-political zones of the country. In addition, covert observation was conducted in fifty (50) towns and villages in Nigeria within the same period by the researcher. The major finding of this study reveals that even though majority of the respondents agree that English can be used as a medium for enhancing communicative unity among speakers of different languages in Nigeria, an overwhelming majority of them did not agree that English can be used as a symbol of national identity in Nigeria. Conversely, considering the way English is spreading in the country, as revealed by the results of the observation, this study argues that English can serve as a veritable tool of integration and by extension national identity in Nigeria without necessarily having any negative incursion on native cultural identity. This can be achieved without necessarily affecting the 'Africanness' of Nigerians living in Africa