By Enewaridideke Ekanpou
Let all Ijaw people listen to me very carefully and take to every home this message delivered here.
Ijaw people should teach their children the Ijaw language.A great celebration is coming tomorrow!When you are suddenly entrapped and endangered in the course of life, you can speak Ijaw to your neighbour and create life-saving possibilities.With the communication routed through your language, your neighbour can walk away saved.
Our children of this generation can no longer speak the Ijaw language as it should be.Our children have developed apathy towards our Ijaw language in communication.This is a parental failure because fathers and mothers no longer teach their children Ijaw.This is a disastrous phenomenon that does not augur well for the future of Ijaw language.Some families in Ijaw still teach their children Ijaw language. If I must count such families,Senator James Manager is a good example of a family that teaches their children Ijaw language.In the family of Senator Manager his children speak Ijaw as fluently as they speak English despite the fact that they were born in the city.Our children no longer want to understand and speak our Ijaw language because their parents have strayed from the right path.Everybody should follow the example of Senator Manager.Let Ijaw people teach their children Ijaw;Let them count from one to ten in Ijaw.Now the father cannot even count from one to ten in Ijaw;The mother cannot count from one to ten in Ijaw.When parents cannot count from one to ten in Ijaw, neither can their children count from one to ten in Ijaw.What do you expect the children to do when their parents cannot also count from one to ten in Ijaw?Anemi M.P. Evilewuru should bring out the Ijaw dictionary and share to both the young and the old in Ijaw so that Ijaw language can be mastered by all the Ijaws as embodied in this my song because I am seemingly in the spiritual world. Without your Ijaw dictionary I cannot understand the Ijaw language too and do justice to my task here today.Dear Dr. Ekanpou E .Enewaridideke, play your own role from your end too so that this matter of Ijaw language can be tackled and given adequate solution.I want to speak Ijaw now.Every Ijaw person should understand Ijaw whenever it is spoken.To understand Ijaw when Ijaw is spoken is the ideal.Now I want to speak Ijaw.Alligator is supposed to drink happily when iguana is the dispenser and sharer of ‘ogogoro’ gin.Spoken word is an iron wood.It shall be over someday however the duration.If it is too long, it will not take more than three days and it shall come to pass.Even if the kFully loaded dug-out canoe always journeys close to the shoreline.I am on the shoreline;I am always inthe shallow part of the river.Jubilate that mango has refused to fall on the doorstep of the man who has teeth but rather it is falling on the doorstep of the man who has no teeth.
