The Power of Language

If at all I didn't know the importance of language, I now do.

_Source

Nigeria is a country with three popular ethnic groups, the Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa people. The Igbo people being from the east (which is where I school) the Yoruba from the west (which is where my family lives) and the Hausa's from the North (which is where is being attacked the most by terrorists).

I know you all must be wondering where I'm going with all of this, well here's a little story for you.

Yesterday, I had decided to travel down to come see my family (from the East down to the West) and something had happened on the way that now makes me see the importance of language.

If you're a Nigerian, then you probably know about the tension down at the east because of the fight between the people of the east and the government. The Easterners want their independence, something the Nigerian government isn't ready to give to them just yet, so there's a lot of gun fire here and there over there at the east.

And that was why when our vehicle got stopped by the military and we were asked to come down and walk just so they could make sure that we all were unarmed and weren't smuggling anything anywhere, I wasn't that surprised. But something else had happened.

After we finished our walk, we all got into our vehicle and was about to drive of when one of the military men walked over to our driver and requested for his keys. We had no idea what was happening and watched as the driver immediately approached the military men to know what he had done wrong.

He later came back to us and told us he had parked wrongly and that was why his key was seized. We asked him to go plead with them but he refused, his reasons being that he would be asked to do some clean up around the placed as a form of punishment before the keys would be given back to him.

We were all getting worried because we still had a very long journey ahead of us and that was when a lady had volunteered to go with him, apparently she knew how to speak Hausa (the same language with the military men) and had pleaded with them with their language.

It didn't even take up to fifteen minutes and we were already driving out of there while the people who committed the same offense as us were still there, cleaning up the whole place. The driver later explained to us that it was only because of the lady who spoke the same language as the military men, that was why we were asked to leave without being punished.

And that was when I realized that truly, there is power in language.