Nigerian Language Media Use and Entertainment Industry as Panacea for Decolonizing Recolonized Space

Western (US and Europe) and Eastern (Middle East and Arabian) media institutions have been made more potent by the advent of globalization and digitization drives of their sponsors. These institutions have been used systematically to recolonize Africa’s efforts at shedding their hold on the continent. Leveraging on the tools of globalization and digitization, our argument is that African language media are powerful enough to be used to win the fight against recolonization. In recent times, the entertainment industry (film and music) has offered some examples in the deployment of African language media with these tools, particularly with the indigenous language and culture use. Language is the window through which the untapped and beautiful cultural wisdom, history, and traditions of African people can be exhibited. African peoples’ innate qualities and unique DNAs are shrouded in respective African languages and the media through which they display their essence. History has shown that colonizers often replace colonized people’s languages with theirs to achieve total subjugation. Ever since the colonized Africans realized the gimmick, there has been an ongoing campaign for decolonization. Consequently, x-raying the Nigerian entertainment industry’ contributions and anchored on decolonization theory, the paper focuses on film and music industries to establish how practitioners have utilized African language media to decolonize the industries and show the world the vibrant African cultural philosophies and histories that foreign media institutions usually suppress in their coverage of the continent. While relying on secondary data, the paper hopes to shed light on decolonization efforts and encourage more studies on how African indigenous language media are being used for decolonization drive.