The north –east region of Nigeria is considered educationally less advantage region with seventy percent of its school children considered out of school due to poverty .The remaining thirty percent though in school are still grappling with literacy in English language , The students performance and competence in the English language is far from optimum thus a growing concern not just to the students , parents but policy makers and the government as well . It is also a known fact that the region is mainly agrarian state and thus a lot of people from different ethnicity converge to eke a living and by so doing a variety of English language domesticated within the social realities of the state is spoken and accepted as the unofficial lingua franca. This variety of Nigerian English is not the acceptable mode of instruction in a formal setting like the classroom. Thus this research examines the impact of Nigerian English on the students’ performance and competence in the use of English language. To achieve this, respondents were drawn from five tertiary institutions in the region, questionnaires were distributed and analysed. It was discovered that there is the existence of a variety of Nigerian English spoken both in informal setting s as well as used in the classroom. The research recommends a synergy between the varieties of the English language as the students tend to understand concepts when presented in Nigerian English. There is also a call for standardization the Nigerian English.