Language policy plays a vital role in shaping educational systems and national development, yet policy frameworks in many African nations remain volatile. The educational language policy in Nigeria has undergone significant transformations, particularly since the return to democratic governance in 1999. While these policies are often presented as instruments for national development and cultural inclusion, their ideological foundations remain insufficiently examined within scholarship on Nigerian language-in-education policy. Informed by archival policy analysis, ethnographic interviews, and classroom observation, I investigate the ideological underpinnings of educational language policy in multilingual Southwestern Nigeria to show how language policies intersect with questions of identity, colonial legacy, sociopolitical stability, and educational practice. Findings from the research indicate that successive policy revisions suppress multilingual realities but reinforce colonial hierarchy in language practice, revealing tensions between linguistic diversity and postcolonial identity formation. These findings call for an examination of fractures created through repeated policy shifts and for their reconciliation with the nation’s multilingual and cultural realities. Insights from this study contribute to ongoing debates on language policy, multilingual education, and educational development in postcolonial educational development in Africa.