Nigerian broadcast stations have been asked to increase the number of time allocated to indigenous programmes and news, to preserve Nigerian languages from going into extinction.
The charge was given by various scholars of communication at the International Conference On Indigenous Language Broadcasting, at the Bayero University Kano.
The 2018 ethnologic data listed Nigeria as having 526 languages.
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Of these, 519 are living languages while seven are extinct.
It is in a bid to prevent the over 500 languages from going into extinction, that the scholars of communication, converged on Kano, to seek the way forward.
Professor Umaru Pate in his presentation said that , English remains the dominant language of broadcast, followed by the three major languages of Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo, while others are poorly represented.
The university don said that , broadcasting in indigenous languages will better drive the message to the people.
The stakeholders also called for the establishment of community radio stations, to broadcast in the local languages of the communities, at a very low cost.
Edited by Tunde Orebiyi
