Translation Practice and Quality Assurance in Nigerian Government Communication: A Case Study of Federal Ministry Publications

This study examines translation practice and quality assurance standards in Nigerian federal government communication, focusing on the translation of official policy documents, public awareness materials, and government service information into Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo as required by Nigeria's multilingual communication obligations. Effective government communication in a linguistically diverse country such as Nigeria requires that official information reaches citizens in languages they understand, yet the translation practices of the federal government's communication apparatus have not been systematically evaluated for quality, consistency, or professionalisation. Document analysis was conducted on a corpus of 60 translated government publications drawn from six federal ministries, including Health, Agriculture, Education, and Finance, examining 20 documents in each of the three major languages. Translation quality is assessed using a functional equivalence framework applied to accuracy of meaning transfer, naturalness of target language expression, register appropriateness for the intended public audience, and terminological consistency across documents. Semi-structured interviews with 15 government translators and communication officers supplement the document analysis. Findings reveal that translation quality varies substantially, with Health Ministry documents in Hausa showing the highest overall quality, reflecting more developed translation resourcing in public health communication contexts. Terminological inconsistency across ministries is a pervasive problem. Recommendations include the establishment of a centralised Federal Government Translation Bureau with certified translators and standardised terminology databases for each major language. Keywords: government translation, language policy, quality assurance, Nigerian languages, official communication.