Commonwealth Officials Apologise For Speaking English

By Kini Nsom

Some Commonwealth officials, who spoke during a civil society meeting in Yaounde stunned participants when they took turns to apologise at the beginning of their speeches for not being able to speak French. The venue was the Yaounde Mont Fébe Hotel where members of the civil society had organised a workshop on "Commonwealth

Action Programme on Digital Divide: The Role of the Cameroonian Civil Society as Change Broker in the Sub-Region" recently. The workshop was one of a series of meetings that held on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation, CTO Conference that ended in Yaounde on September 8.

The Commonwealth Foundation and the Advisory Network for African Information Society, ANAIS, organised the workshop. The first official to apologise was the Programme Manager of the Commonwealth Foundation, Seth Larty, and a Nigerian civil society activist, John Dada.

Many English-speaking participants were embarrassed. They did not understand the reason for the remorse. One civil society activist, Nnenna Nwakanma, was so embarrassed that she sprang to her feet and asked to know if the Commonwealth officials felt guilty of speaking English, and if not, why they had to apologise for speaking it. But before she took her seat, one Mrs. Delphine Nana rumbled angrily in French.

Hear her: "It is not normal that only English is spoken in an important workshop like this one." This provoked jeers and boos from the floor. But she questioned why the organisers did not bring translators/ interpreters to the meeting.

Before the Commonwealth officials could react, Peter Mbah Nforsi, a CRTV journalist who emceed the occasion, seized the microphone and with a trace of anger, said: "No apologies for speaking only English here. This is a Commonwealth event."

Comments

[MBU. B]

What quarrel, can we make of this kind of scene or the general sidelining of anglophones,which finds multitudinous ways of manifestation in our Cameruined?
This is certainly not the first,last or the worst embarassment to us.
Former PM, Musonge was jeered by anglophone parliamentarians for reading his speech, written in french, in parliament. When the only word Paul Biya can say is `i do so swear` When the latter can only say `Welcome to Cameruined` and `How are you` to english speaking foreign diplomats.In some of his scarce outings he makes some doubtful phrases in english and by that maybe feels he catches our attention so much.
It`s no news anglophones are patching up in Cameruined. Such fuckshops are revealing of the fact that we don`t have a place in that country and it`s so clear even to foreigners. The apologies are just an unconscious expression of what really happens in everyday life and how it has affected even our hosts.