Photograph — Oli Scarff/Getty

When Britain’s Metropolitan Police Service posted an advert demanding that fresh recruits be bilingual speaking in one of the following 14 languages in addition to English, Britons were less than enthusiastic. They took to social media to express their disapproval. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police service says the reason for the new requirement, which is a pilot scheme, is that London is home to almost 300 languages, necessitating recruitment of officers who can effectively communicate with residents who speak languages other than English.

MET
Credit – metropolicecareers.co.uk

Topping the list of the 14 selected languages is one of Nigeria’s major languages, Yoruba. This is no surprise; besides the fact that a significant proportion of the Nigerian population in the UK is Yoruba, Yoruba people can be found all over the world including in Latin America, the United States, and the Caribbean. The Atlantic slave trade, plus the migration of the Yoruba to countries all over the world for academic, economic, and political reasons, have led to the global spread of the language and culture, making it one of the most spoken African languages worldwide. A survey of London school pupils in 2000 revealed Yoruba to be the ninth most spoken language in London. In 2007,  Yoruba was listed as one of the world’s 100 largest languages.  It is the first African language to approach an estimated 30 million speakers.  Although the exact population of Yorubas outside of Africa is yet to be known, researchers have established that most African Americans are of Yoruba descent.

The Yoruba language continues to gain dominance and recognition for a number of reasons, but majorly for the fact that they, unlike certain other ethnic groups in Nigeria, have a deeply rooted culture that has been passed down for centuries. They are a people that take great pride in their language and culture, and they do well to educate their children about their history. It is common practice for Yoruba parents to communicate with their children in Yoruba, irrespective of where they are, this practice is hardly embraced by some ethnic groups in Nigeria. This explains why some languages have gone extinct. The Yoruba people speak their language and practice their culture wherever they are, and more importantly in their homes.

However, the news has raised the question of whether or not Nigerians and other foreign nationals are committing the most crime in the UK.

 A 2012 Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System in the UK shows that blacks (a good percentage of which are Nigerians, especially in London), have the highest number of criminal offenders in comparison with other foreign nationals. In 2013, the case of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, convicted for the murder of Lee Rigby, a 25 year old British soldier definitely put blacks on the crime radar. Also, a 2013 post by the British National Party states that blacks commit the most crime in England and Wales.

However, perhaps a recent backlash faced by the MET over  a Facebook conversations between serving and former officers making racial slurs prompted the new scheme.  Could this be an attempt to redeem the reputation of the police service? This could mean,  “MET is not racist. We are concerned about every ethnicity in the UK”.

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