THE ATTAINMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT- A LEGO-LINGUIST APPROACH

Abstract

Nigeria is blessed with diverse linguistic resources which can be harnessed to serve as an engineering tool to foster effective environmental governance that will usher in sustainable development. Despite the prominent role language plays in the development circle, the role of language in development is regarded as too in-tangential to be taken seriously. Nigerian’s environmental regime have not been successful because the spiritual needs of the local people for whom the environment is sought to be protected have been neglected. Given the renewed interest to safe-guard linguistic diversity by maintaining language resources as a vehicle for development, this paper seeks to unravel the reason why efforts geared towards attaining effective environmental governance and development have met with little or no result in Nigeria. The best policy option for the successful construction of the social environment and its protection remains a question that is begging for answers. If sustainable development is to be achieved, there is an urgent need to address the specific needs of particular culturally and linguistically distinct communities in Nigeria. The aim of this paper is to promote the use of indigenous Nigerian languages for the strengthening of environmental governance in order to foster sustainable development in Nigeria. The paper finds that Governments, policy makers and policy planners are yet to recognize the potentials of indigenous languages in bringing about sustainable development. As a result, Nigerian languages have been ignored in her quest for the attainment of sustainable development. The paper concludes that if sustainable development is to be achieved, indigenous languages must be recognized as pivotal to the attainment of sustainable development goals.