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GWYNNE DYER: Why are Africans still taught English in school?

More than 50 years after most countries in sub-Saharan Africa got independence, Colonialist languages are still being spoken and taught

It is a matter of chronic surprise that politicians, otherwise well-trained in saying just the right thing for the audience they are addressing, forget that whatever they say can be heard everywhere. Right away. By anybody who cares to listen, including journalists always hungry for the next story.

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And thus to Kenya’s President William Ruto, who was in Italy last week talking up his country’s virtues.

One of his claims was that Kenyans speak “some of the best English in the world” — and then, noticing that the audience was dozing off and in need of a joke, went on to say that Nigerian-accented English, by contrast, was incomprehensible.

He got such a big laugh (most of the audience were Kenyans living in Italy) that he kept going.

“If you listen to a Nigerian speaking, you don’t know what they are saying — you need a translator.”

Another big laugh — and then the social media all over Africa lit up with protests.

How dare Ruto mock fellow Africans? Why should Africans be speaking a colonial language like English anyway? And who the hell did he think he was to........

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