Revisiting Mbella Moki’s Stunning Outing At the Senate
Senators Mbella Moki of the CPDM and Henry Kemende of the
SDF, recently took turns at the Senate, to condemn the bill on the Promotion of
official languages.
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Senators Mbella Moki and Henry Kemende stunned the senate
with their objective and critical views about the bill on
bilingualism practice
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Addressing
his colleagues in Senate, Senator Mbella Moki said: “I plead with this house, a
dignified house to have a feeling for those of us who are complaining…. If you
take their complaints seriously, Mr President, you should know that what they
are doing is the right thing. If this house, and those who drafted this law
imagined that doing what is right is wrong, then what is right in this
country?” He asked.
Appealing
to his Francophone colleagues, Senator Mbella Moki asked them to imagine if the
situation was reversed, and their communities faced with a situation where a
Magistrate has to deliver judgment in English, a language they do not
understand, but the Magistrate prefers to use it for his convenience.
He
stated that the said bill is considered by the average Anglophone, as
obnoxious, and as such, the bill “truly betrays the very intentions to deny the
people of the Northwest and Southwest Regions the right to have English as an
official working language, and the right to practice the Common Law in their
courts”. He said, pointing out that such decisions sent lawyers to the streets
in 2016, and led to the security situation Cameroon is grappling with today. “I
was in Buea, I saw what happened.”
“We
should all be frank to say that we are tired of seeing the blood of innocent
Cameroonians flow on our streets. It is that same denial of the use of English
as the language of instruction and practice of the English System of Education
in schools, in the Northwest and Southwest Regions that sent teachers on strike
in 2016. Many in our English speaking Regions see this bill as a slap on our
faces, which will go a long way in enriching the separatists’ argument” he
said.
Noting
that the bill was ill drafted and comes at a bad time, the Senator opined that
English should be the working language in Anglophone Regions, while French
should be the working language in the other Regions, even as the country
strives to promote bilingualism.
He
proposed that the bill on Special Status should have come first, from where
other bills such as that on bilingualism will draw inspiration. “I will not
vote for this bill, I cannot. It will be at the expense of my life,” he said.
On his
part, Senator Kemende said “If there is any single bill that has ever left the
National Assembly and the Upper House gives a different opinion, the bill on
the Promotion of Official Languages should one of such bills. This is when the
Upper House, made up of important dignitaries, who have served this nation, and
who are interested in seeing that they leave the nation intact for their
children and grandchildren; this is when their voices have to be heard; over
this bill.”
Drawing
from his legal experience, the Barrister and Senator pointed out the lapses in
the bill. He said the document did not have provisions for punishing officials
who fail to abide by it.
To him,
it was merely a moral document that gives room for officials to continue with
disregard for certain language lapses as they have done over the years. “When
it is a moral document, when there is no sanction attached to it, we will still
have that scenario repeating itself, whereby, documents will come out of
offices in one language, and one person will find difficulties understanding.”
To the
Senator, the country will lose, if the bill becomes law.
“The
country may be bilingual, but we are not bilingual. We must accept that fact
before we can progress, without which, we will find ourselves in a situation
where we will be building and destroying at the same time, and that is what is
happening in the field.”
He
noted that. “After the lawyers threatened to strike, the amendment that was
made was merely cosmetic. Nothing has changed. It remains what they intended,
and I want to think that the person who drafted this bill and brought it to
Parliament, is an enemy of the Head of State,”
Despite
the interventions of the Senators and their other like-minded colleagues, the
bill was voted at the Senate.
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