Adamu Idris Manarakis has made tremendous contribution to the development and promotion of Nupe language in Nigeria at young age and at such a small time. Time has come for the society to acknowledge his effort and stop ignoring him, especially the elites of Nupe Kingdom, and make his Indigenous Languages Learning Centre (ILLEC), a formidable Nupe language renaissance centre and promotion. We must ignore his youthful exuberance in other areas and take him to a higher level in the preservation of Nupe language. He studied Building Technology at the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna.
Manarakis is hot-blooded, anxious, dogged, persistent, resilient, adventurous, unashamed of mistakes, focused and madly thirsty of glories, all of which have contributed to one immeasurable effort of enlisting Nupe language as a subject of study at the Niger State College of Education, Minna. This is in addition to the massive production of Nupe language books and unrepentant mentoring of younger ones by him. “Any big thing around you, was once a small idea”.
Prof. Auna has made a profound contribution to the Nupes for which they cannot pay him enough by agreeing to start a pilot study of Nupe language in College of Education, Minna, Niger State. What Nupe people could not do for themselves despite their enormous power in Nigeria, a Kambari man has done for them with a simple nod. I doubt if Prof. Auna knows the height of his simple act for the Nupes, which shall go down in history as a turning point in the arrest of the drift of Nupe language, toward a concrete preservations and enhancement of its value in the global arena through studies and book production. As far as I am concerned, Prof. Auna has become a Nupe cultural icon in the world. All the Nupe Emirates in Niger State and elsewhere, should honour him for this. I hope languages like Gbagyi and Kambari will follow next. Zone C, Zone C, toh ga zone C nan ai. Politics can spoil our mutual relationship ehn. Thank you, Zone C.
The COE Minna experiment to start the Nupe language studies has become successful because Manarakis’ ILLEC exists, 99% of the students are from there. So, ILLEC is the laboratory for the trigger of the study of Nupe language in Nigeria. ILLEC’s successes as a private enterprise must be complimented with a formidable accommodation that should have modern features of learning materials and environment. Time has come for Nigerlites to donate facilities to Manarakis to fire him into the global arena and draw attraction to Niger State from international linguistics circles, for greater development of Nupe language. Like the Ministry of Education gave HCAF a place to build her national headquarters, ILLEC deserves one too.
Nigerlites are doing well for Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation which has given Niger State a brand profile in Nigeria. We admit that ILLEC needs more than HCAF for its profound relevance to the preservation of a people’s language. ILLEC needs a place near HCAF too. It needs a block of classrooms for Nupe and Gbagyi classes. They need an executive office building, library, mini ICT room to facilitate accelerated growth of the Centre. All these should be donated to Manarakis. Private ventures are more enduring. Government should outsource certain things to certain private person’s for results. So, let’s open a corridor of cultural preservation from El-Amin junction toward Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation to the new SUBEB Model School where we can have art galleries, printing press, photography foundation s, painting foundations, craft shops, fabrics, pottery established as economic ventures. So that Minna will have a street where Niger State’s cultural materials could be found by visitors and citizens at a glance. Let ILLEC be the next to HCAF, there.
Lastly, a profound tribute must be paid to the former Deputy Governor of Niger State, Alhaji Ahmed Ketso for his big support to ILLEC. Profounder is Gov. Bago’s support for paying the fees for the first set of Nupe language students at COE, Minna. He wasn’t the Governor when he did so. The Etsu Nupe, Dr. Yahaya Abubakar deserves a mention of gratitude as well. There are numerous contributors who gave life to Manarakis’ dreams and ILLEC. This includes the late Prof. Tswanya, Mrs Aishetu Ndayako, Hon. SMA, Alh. Mahmud Abdullahi of Prestige FM, Isyaku Bala Ibrahim, etc.
The COE process started from Prof. Faruk. The students are now in 200L. They were twenty in the beginning but ten dropped out. The COE, Minna Nupe Language Lecturers are; Adamu Idris Manarakis, Mrs Kesiah, Mr. Jonathan. The HOD is Mrs. Victoria Jiya. May we see to the successful completion of the course by the students. Gladly, the textbooks being used are locally generated.
Indeed, Manarakis is an example of one man, can change the world.
