The Role of French in Constructing Pan-African Identity Among University Students in Abuja

Pan-African discourse has historically navigated the tension between French as a colonial imposition and its function as a practical medium of continental solidarity and political communication, and this tension manifests in the language ideologies of contemporary African university students in complex ways that remain underexplored. This study investigates how French language engagement shapes pan-African identity construction among undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Abuja. A constructivist grounded theory design was employed, with in-depth interviews conducted with 38 students who identified as interested in pan-African politics, African integration, or francophone studies. Theoretical sampling continued until conceptual saturation was reached. Constant comparative analysis generated substantive and formal theoretical categories. Results reveal three primary patterns of French-pan-African identity alignment among respondents: an integrationist orientation viewing French competence as a practical tool for continental solidarity; a decolonial orientation in which French learning is ideologically contested despite strategic adoption; and a pragmatic orientation viewing French instrumentally without pan-African ideological commitment. The integrationist and decolonial orientations were most common among students with previous exposure to francophone African literature and politics. The study contributes an empirically grounded identity theory of French in the pan-African imagination and recommends that French curricula at Nigerian universities explicitly engage with pan-Africanist debates about French language as a site of intellectual and political contestation. Keywords: pan-African identity, French language, University of Abuja, language ideology, decolonial