Monday Okpebholo: Why Edo gov shouldn’t be mocked over English – Reno Omokri
Monday Okpebholo
On this Edo State Governor and his difficulties with the English language, his critics display the deepest inferiority complex and colonial mentality. Is intelligence defined by your ability to speak English? How many Chinese speak English? Yet, they are taking over the world. India is currently the fastest-growing economy on Earth, with a growth of above 7%. Yet, Indians do not speak English. They speak mostly Hindi.
You cannot speak your own native language, and you mock a man fluent in Bini and Esan, the two most spoken languages in Edo State? Please fact-check me: Ability to speak multiple languages is a sign of deep intelligence. Senator Monday Okpebholo is more intelligent than you who can only speak English.
This is the pseudo-intelligence that is destroying Africa. We have translated the Bible into almost all African languages, yet we do not have science textbooks in any of our languages.
As a people, we define intelligence by our ability to speak fancy, high-falutin English—the snootier, the better. Yet, we cannot feed ourselves, build our own infrastructure, or develop our indigenous military-industrial complex.
Better learn from the Lukumi Yoruba. The more their singers and movie directors release songs and movies in the Lukumi Yoruba language, the more the world accepts them. The more they do the same in English, the less the world accepts them.
Who told you the English man wants to hear you speak, sing and act in your low level English? Is that not why they make you take TOEFL and IELTS before you get a student visa, even if you have a PhD?
They are looking for originals, not cheap copies that bear st*p@d names like Paul Benjamin, or Moses Anthony!
Look at Morayo by Wizkid and Lungu Boy by Asake. They are some of the most streamed albums on Spotify Nigeria and Africa. How many English albums made the list? Even Grammy winner Tyla did not make the top three in South Africa, her own country, with her English album. Amapiano dominated!
Please fact-check me: Ten years ago, UNESCO classified the Igbo language as an endangered language. Most Niger Delta languages will go extinct in fifty years. The South African language Xam is now totally extinct. All because Africans want to speak English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic better than the true owners of those languages.
Only Lukumi Yoruba and Hausa are expanding. Lukumi Yoruba is even spreading outside Nigeria faster than within Nigeria. ALL other Nigerian languages are contracting. Go and learn your language instead of mocking the Edo State Governor!
By Reno Omokri
Gospeller. Deep Thinker. #TableShaker. Ruffler of the Feathers of Obidents. #1 Bestselling author of Facts Versus Fiction: The True Story of the Jonathan Years. Hodophile. Hollywood Magazine Humanitarian of the Year, 2019. Business Insider Influencer of the Year 2022.
