The Role of Igbo Cultural Organisations in Language Maintenance in the South West Zone: A Study of Ohanaeze Ndigbo in Ogun State

This study examines the contribution of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, to Igbo language maintenance activities in Ogun State, South West Nigeria. Cultural organisations occupy a critical intermediate space between state language policy and community language practice, often constituting the primary institutional infrastructure for language maintenance in diaspora environments. The Ogun State chapter of Ohanaeze Ndigbo has been active in cultural programming for over two decades, providing a productive case study for evaluating organisational language maintenance effectiveness. The study adopts a case study methodology, drawing on semi-structured interviews with twenty organisation executives and members, non-participant observation of five major cultural events, and analysis of organisation records, event programmes, and communications archives. Findings indicate that Ohanaeze Ndigbo Ogun State supports Igbo language maintenance primarily through cultural festivals, naming ceremony sponsorships, and community school visits, but lacks a formalised language maintenance strategic plan or dedicated educational budget line. Igbo language instruction activities are ad hoc rather than systematic. The organisation's strong social capital is identified as an underutilised asset for language maintenance programming. Recommendations include partnering with Igbo language academic departments to design structured language maintenance initiatives anchored to the organisation's cultural events calendar. Keywords: Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Igbo language maintenance, Ogun State, cultural organisation, diaspora.