Colonial Language Policy and the Marginalisation of Yoruba in Nigerian Education: A Post-Colonial Critique

Colonial language policies in Nigeria systematically privileged English as the medium of formal education and public administration, producing institutional structures that continue to marginalise Yoruba and other indigenous languages in post-independence educational practice. This dissertation presents an original post-colonial critique of colonial language policy and its enduring legacy in the marginalisation of Yoruba in Nigerian education, drawing on archival research, discourse analysis, and comparative post-colonial education theory. Primary data were collected from British colonial archives in London and Ibadan, colonial government reports, missionary education documents, and post-independence curriculum policy texts spanning 1900 to the present. The study applies post-colonial theory, specifically Fanon's analysis of colonial language and identity, Ngug wa Thiong'o's language and decolonisation framework, and Canagarajah's post-colonial language education critique, to analyse how colonial language ideology was institutionalised and how it persists in contemporary Nigerian educational policy. Existing historical accounts of Nigerian language policy have documented colonial decisions without engaging the post-colonial theoretical frameworks needed to reveal their ideological underpinnings and structural consequences. This dissertation makes an original contribution by synthesising archival evidence with post-colonial theory to produce a genealogy of Yoruba educational marginalisation. Findings will demonstrate continuities between colonial language ideology and contemporary Nigerian educational policy that have never been systematically theorised. Recommendations will address a decolonial language education reform agenda for Nigeria. Keywords: colonial language policy, Yoruba, post-colonial critique, Nigerian education, decolonisation.