Nigeria, no doubt, is a very complex country; its complexity is betokened by the
diversity of its cultures, traditions, customs, mores, and, above, all, its languages.
Its size, perhaps, magnifies this complexity also: Nigeria is the largest single
geographic unit on the West Coast of Africa. Its size is 356,669 sq mile, on
923,764 sq. Kilometers. Its population, based upon the controversial census of
1991, is 88.5 million people. It is said to be the most populous black African
country, for it is believed that "one out of every four Africans is a Nigerian" (Capo
1992:3). More than in any area, the linguistic area is the most enigmatic of all.
The most recent linguistic scholarship puts the number of languages spoken in
Nigeria at 400. Since this nation yearns to be endoglossic as far as the national
language, it concerned, we thus need to come, up with a Lingua-franca out of the
400 languages and dialects spoken in Nigeria. Since the task is not an easy one,
for it is almost as explosive as the question of 01C of our recent experience, this
paper suggests the means by which a national language or lingua-franca could
be chosen without the political explosion that had been a threat to that choice.
This paper thus suggests a demythologizing of the linguistic "myth" that had
beclouded out thought about Lingua-franca, in Nigeria.