PASSAGE III The second world and Africa Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) was staged in 1977. At the colloquimorganized during the festival, various issues affecting the development of the black world, including the inability of most independent Africa nations to make a clean break with the language of colonialism, were discussed by seasoned intellectuals. It was resolved then that each Africa country should assign important functions to its major indigenous languages in order to facilitate the selection of one of them to replace the colonial language at the national level. This, it was hoped, could bring about the much-needed unity and national integration. Besides, since the different European languages in use were considered to be unsuitable for the expression of African cultures values, African countries were urged to promote their cultures in their local languages. As they put it, no language could effectively express an experience if the experience does not occur in that language; therefore a campaign should be mounted, as a matter of urgency to give impetus to the promotion of African languages. The media in each country, it was suggested, should spearhead the quest for an indigenous national language by educating, motivating and mobilizing their government and people towards the selection of an appropriate local language. This, in itself was a recognition that the media a term usually applied in reference to all the important agencies of mass information and entertainment, like the press, the radio and the television–wield tremendous and immeasurable power through their ability to mobilize the people and modify their behavior, particularly towards important national issues. Regrettably, the media in Nigeria are yet to take up such major roles that would facilitate the emergence of an indigenous national language in the country.
