- 1 Oyebamiji, Akeem Kolawole(PhD)*, 2 AbidemiOlusola,Bolarinwa (PhD)
- 1 Department of Yorùbá, Federal University of Education, Zaria. 2 Department of Linguistics and African Languages, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.
The
National Policy on Education (2013) as well as the Constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria (1999) has brought to the fore the need to use Nigerian
languages for national discourse and development. This is to begin with the
employment of the language of immediate environment for the teaching-learning
exercise at the early stage of primary education and the recognition of Hausa,
Igbo and Yorùbá as National languages to complement English in the future.
Early education acquired through the medium of the mother tongue or language of
the immediate environment is capable of enhancing better understanding and
developing the pupils’ curiosity and love for education, their environment and
the nation at large. Early level educators in mother tongue and parents
understand the place of native riddles, folktales and rhymes both as sources of
education and means of getting the learners set for learning new concepts.
Unfortunately, these important mores are going into extinction as elders andor
parents no longer have time to tell stories and perform folktales for the
children. Besides, there are overwhelming numbers of private primary schools
where mother tongue is not even used in teaching pupils at any class. This
development contrasts sharply with the past practice by the traditional
Africans and more precisely the Yorùbá who imparted their amiable cultural
values to their younger ones through poetic or narrative riddles, folktales and
other cultural practices designed to impart knowledge, wisdom and understanding
from generation to generation. Against this backdrop, this paper demonstrates
the need for a reversal. Four different kinds of narrative riddles purposively
selected from Raji’s (2002)Àrọ̀Jíjá
constitute the data. These are: (1) Ikún
Ni Òun le Sọ Ẹ̀pà Mẹ́fà di Ẹgbẹ̀fà (The Squirrel Boasts that he
could Turn Six Groundnuts to One Hundred and Twenty Naira),(2) Àkàsọ̀àtiÒgiri(The Wall and the
Ladder), (3) Apẹ̀tẹ̀bí (Apẹ̀tẹ̀bí) and, (4) Kínni n Jẹ́Ẹwẹ(What is Ẹwẹ?). The
data is analyzedvia the theoretical frame work of Cultural Theory. The paper
finds out that riddles satisfactorily teach children distinct cultural and
educative values aimed at maintaining serenity and tranquility in the society
and foster their growth and development into enviable future adults. It
concludes that extinction of riddle has grave implications on the nation and
recommends that it is employed to educate the children for future felicity.
