INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES AND MEDICINE AS MECHANISMS FOR ADDRESSING GLOBAL PANDEMIC

Abstract

Excruciating global challenges emerged with the Covid-19 pandemic. This study seeks to demonstrate that Nigerian indigenous languages and medicine can serve as internal remedies, if they are properly deployed and used judiciously to address the challenges posed by the pandemic in Nigeria. The study relies on observation and secondary data sourced from library and internet-based materials. It is anchored on the Indigenous Existential Phenomenology Theory (IEPT), which upholds indigenous systems and charges individual and collective custodians of these systems to preserve, develop, promote, and sustain them. Among the systems are indigenous languages and medicine, which have the potentials to address the global pandemic in Nigeria and other nations where these systems are leveraged for the desired solutions. The analysis shows that although Nigerian indigenous languages and medicine are viable mechanisms for achieving internal remedies, their potentials are often neglected, underutilised, and poorly harnessed in responding to such challenges. The study concludes that these systems, along with other indigenous systems, constitute significant remedies, but they have not been adequately tapped. It recommends that the Nigerian government and relevant authorities should look inward for solutions, including greater reliance on indigenous languages and medicine.