The first time someone called Gloria Vincent a “fake Igbo,” she laughed. Not because she found the accusation funny, but she didn’t know what else to say. The accusation came casually, almost jokingly, during a conversation with other Igbos friends. Someone had asked her a simple question in Igbo, but she went blank. She could not respond.
“How can you be Igbo and not speak Igbo?” she recalled someone asking her.
At 25, Gloria has heard the question too many times to count. Every time she hears this, it always leaves behind the same feeling, shame mixed with confusion. The 25-year-old was born and raised in Kaduna State by Igbo parents from Enugu State, but the language never followed her into adulthood. Instead, the Hausa language did.
Growing up in Kaduna state shaped almost everything about her life. She ate northern food, spoke Hausa fluently and built friendships within the culture around her. At home, English became the common language, while her native language suddenly disappeared into the background until it became something she could barely understand.
What made it worse was spending part of her childhood with relatives who also did not help her reconnect with the language or traditions she had inherited by blood. “I’ve always known I could not understand Igbo since I was young,” she said. “Whenever people find out I don’t speak my language, they shake their heads like it is something to be ashamed of.”
For Gloria, identity has become something she constantly has to explain. To some, she’s not igbo enough, to some, she’s not fully Hausa. She is somewhere in-between.
A Country Always on the Move
Gloria’s experience reflects a growing reality for many Nigerians born far away from their ancestral homes. Across Nigeria, internal migration, which means the movement of people from one state or region to another, has quietly reshaped identities, languages and cultural belonging for millions of families. While some parents leave home searching for better jobs, safer environments or economic opportunities, their children grow up carrying histories and ethnic identities tied to places they barely know.
According to the 2006 Housing and Population Census, more than 10 per cent of Nigerians were living outside the states where they were born. An Internal Migration Survey conducted in 2010 later showed that 23 percent of Nigerians had changed residence within a decade, with nearly half of the migrants aged between 20 and 34.
Migration patterns increased after independence, especially between 1976 and 1996, as Nigerians moved from rural areas into cities in search of work and education. Studies also show that internal migrants in Nigeria often face discrimination and exclusion because locals treat them as outsiders.(could you provide a citation?)
“I Didn’t Know I Was Yoruba”
For Zaynab, the confusion started long before she even understood what identity meant. Born 23 years ago in Kano state to Yoruba parents from Oyo State. Hausa filled everywhere around her while growing up. It was the language she heard in markets, among neighbours and inside classrooms. At home, speaking Yoruba was also never enforced.
By the time she turned eight, she still did not fully realise she was Yoruba. It was during a visit to her family’s hometown, Okeho, a town in Oyo state that the reality hit her, where her relatives spoke a language she could barely fathom, as everything felt unfamiliar.
For two years, she stayed with relatives there, trying to adapt. But instead of feeling connected, she felt lost. “I always felt strange there; it did not feel like home to me,” she told this reporter. Eventually, she returned to Kano after falling sick. Since then, she has rarely gone back to Oyo. “To me, it’s Kano or nothing,” she said with a laugh.
Now, she speaks Hausa and pidgin more comfortably than Yoruba. When people expect her to speak her “mother tongue,” embarrassment always follows. “Sometimes I feel ashamed when I cannot speak, especially in public. “Where I was born shaped everything about me, including my mentality, my personality, the way I speak, even the way I approach people,” she said.
Between Blood and Belonging
In many Nigerian homes, migration stories begin with sacrifice. Parents leave villages and hometowns chasing survival. Some settle permanently in unfamiliar states. Others never imagine their children will lose touch with their roots completely. Usman’s father was one of them.
Originally from Kano, he moved to Oyo State because of his business in phones and accessories. Over time, he built a life there, got married and settled down.
Then came Usman.
Unlike his father, Usman grew up deeply connected to Yoruba culture and language. Hausa, his ancestral language, remained distant to him. Now studying in one of the Northern universities in Nigeria, he constantly finds himself explaining why he cannot speak the language people expect from someone with his name and background.
“Sometimes it makes me look like an outcast,” he said. Among his friends and classmates, a lot of questions mixed with suspicion are always raised. “You’re Hausa and you can’t speak Hausa?”
At first, Usman will try laughing it off. Over time, the questions became exhausting to him. The irony is not lost on him. In Oyo, people sometimes see him as northern because of his name and family background. In the North, he struggles to fit in because of the language barrier.
Why Languages Disappear
According to Adedamola Hameedat Opoola, a language expert, and an graduate assistant in the Department of Linguistics and Languages at the Federal University Oye Ekiti, many children raised outside their parents’ home states gradually lose touch with their native languages because of both family attitudes and their environment.
“When parents do not actively speak their native language with their children, the children naturally become more comfortable with the language used around them daily,” she explained.
Opoola noted that children often develop stronger connections with the language spoken by outsiders, teachers, friends and the wider community around them. As a result, children raised far away from their ancestral homes tend to absorb the dominant language of their environment more easily than the one tied to their ethnic roots.
She added that access also plays a very important role. According to her, if a Yoruba family moves to a place where Hausa is the dominant language, the children automatically become part of a linguistic minority.
“Without regular exposure at home, in schools or within the community, it becomes difficult for them to fully learn or maintain their mother tongue,” she said
According to her, this can later affect a child’s sense of identity and belonging, especially among children old enough to recognise the differences between their ethnic background and the culture they grew up in. “They may feel torn between their native identity and the environment they are more familiar with,” she said.
Opoola ended by advising parents living outside their home states to intentionally speak their native languages with their children from an early age, to preserve the language.
Writer: Muhammed Akindele
Editors: Beatrice Nwoko, Amaka Obioji
Image: Diaspora Africa