From a linguistic perspective, Pidgin English is one of the five candidates for national language in Nigeria (others being: one or more of the major languages, one or more of the minor languages, Kiswahili or a fabricated language such as the proposed WAZOBIA) (see, Bamgbose et al 1995 for details). However, Pidgin English as an option for a national or official language has its own challenges. Although linguistic efforts are actively on as to the codification and standardisation of Pidgin, until what we call Standard Nigerian Pidgin is achieved, pidgin will be a misfit for a national language. This is because any language that will serve as national language must possess the linguistic apparatus to convey our worldview as a nation. It must also be rich enough to label global concepts in science and other humanly relevant fields.
In truth, learning the Standard Nigerian Pidgin, if this is ever achieved, will pose no limited challenges than English does. This is because only one of the existing varieties (such as Warri Pidgin, Ajegunle Pidgin, among others) will be accepted as the standard variety and users must adhere to the syntactic, morphological, phonological and idiomatic dictates of that variety. The adoption of Pidgin as a national language won't lessen the challenges inherent in learning the English Language because pidgin too will become strictly rule governed.
The nativisation, indigenisation and nigerianisation of the English Language makes it appropriate enough as our official language. English, being the most geographically dispersed language in the world, has been adapted to suit the sociocultural experiences of the different nations where it is being adopted as an official language. English has also widened its linguistic data base like no other language in the world. It has picked the word piano from the Italian language, paper from Arab, knife from Scandinavian, rendezvous from French and even fufu and agbada from Yoruba. It has enabled us to create our own world with its flexibility of coinages which have birthed words such as well done, go slow and so on which suitably depict our sociocultural reality as a people.
My submission is that anyone who doesn't put in a good effort to learn standard English will most likely complain that standard pidgin is more difficult if we choose to adopt pidgin as our official language. If you doubt me, does the fact that I or you speak Yoruba mean we can sit for Yoruba in WAEC and make A1? You will agree with me that every language has its standard form which is different from what majority speak. Even in England where most of the citizens are native speakers of English, what we call standard English is still being spoken by less than fifteen percent of the citizenry. English, therefore, remains the best candidate as our national and official language in Nigeria.