Abstract:
This paper focuses on the use of mother tongue as a way out to security challenges in Adamawa State. Human being use language to interact with one another not only as an instrument of communication but also as a means of individual expression. Linguists commonly use the term L1 to refer to a first or native language (the mother tongue). Mother tongue refers to a person’s native language that is a language learned from birth. This study is very important in the sense that society cannot exist without security, and Adamawa is one of the multilingual societies in Nigeria. This study comprises of two parts, the first part which is the general introduction which discusses language and mother tongue, aim and objectives of the research, model of operation, review of some related literature and research methodology. The second part analyzes the insecurity situations in Adamawa state where it took Ganye Chiefdom in southern zone, and two local government areas each in central and northern zones as the scope of the study. This research used descriptive theory in guiding the discussion captured. The methodologies used in collecting data for the research are interviews and observation. This study found out that, since the return of democracy in 1999 Adamawa state experiences a lot of security challenges i.e., ethno-religious crises, political crises, issues of Boko Haram insurgency, kidnapping and clashes between pastorals and farmers, this study also found out that kidnappers abducted and killed many people in Ganye Chiefdom and Boko Haram Terrorists have also burned many houses and places of worship in both Magagali and Michika local government areas and activities of ‘Yan Shila Gang group has become threats to the development of Adamawa. This study recommends amongst others that, Government at all level should be encourage experts to educate people in their languages of the immediate environment on the importance of security and the effect of insecurity, Government should organize workshops and seminars in the state on security and insecurity matters and experts should use and translate all discussions into the mother tongue language(s), traditional institutions should be encouraging their masses not to engaged themselves in any matter that will bring insecurity in their societies and they should be call in their various mother tongue language(s).
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.57233/djfafais.2026.v22i02.020
author/Ismaila Girei Ibrahim and Isa Umar Al-Musawi
journal/Degel 22(2) | October 2026 |
