Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Prof. Chris Uchenna Agbedo has called for a renewed commitment to linguistic honesty, accountability and civic consciousness, declaring that Nigeria’s challenges are not merely political, economic or institutional but are also deeply rooted in a crisis of meaning.
It formed the key message of the 255th Inaugural Lecture of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, titled “WordMatters: Sociolinguistic Calculus as Praxis for Interrogating Linguistic Banditry and Banditisation of Nigeria,” delivered on Thursday, 5 November 2026, at the Princess Alexandra Auditorium and Theatre, UNN.
The lecture explored how language constructs social reality, shapes public understanding, distributes power and may be deployed to conceal wrongdoing. It also presented Sociolinguistic Calculus as an analytical and remedial framework for interrogating the manipulation of meaning in Nigeria’s public life.
Agbedo is a Professor of Sociolinguistics and Psycholinguistics, at University of Nigeria, Nsukka. His scholarly work spans sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, pragmatics, critical discourse analysis and the application of linguistic theory to Nigerian social realities. He has authored over 14 books, contributed 16 book chapters and published more than 95 peer-reviewed journal articles. He served as Head, Department of Linguistics, Igbo & Other Nigerian Languages from 2017 to 2020, Director of the Centre for Igbo Studies, University of Nigeria, from 2021 to 2024, and has been involved in initiatives promoting Igbo language, culture, heritage and global reconnection.
