Apparently irked by the bill on the promotion of official languages in Cameroon, Senator Chief Anja seized the floor of the senate last week to express his frustrations. In fact, he said adopting such a poorly drafted piece of legislation will indeed be an attempt to disgrace the Head of State, President Paul Biya.

Cameroon-info.net brings to you excerpts of the submissions made by Senator Chief. Dr. Anja Simon last week at a Senate plenary attended among others by some members of Government.

His words: “Thank you Mr. President for giving me the opportunity to express my own views. I welcome the Minister with his entourage. The problem with this bill is its contextual form. In other words, for those who have done languages, you will see with me that when you look at a sentence, you understand the meaning in a different way.

“And that is why the different disciplines or subjects have their own languages. In other words, words are interpreted differently according to the language or the subject in which it is used. Or, it could be according to the phrase. So, if you look in that bill, words such as “Or”, “Any”, “Either”, “Practice” or “Promotion” have meanings which can bring problems especially now that we want our nation to be in unity and this bill has come again to ignite a problem which you and myself will be blamed as people who are of the upper house, the house of lords. What is the meaning? People who are rich with wisdom. 

“It does not mean that every bill that is approved or adopted in the lower house must be adopted by us. Then, it means that we are just stooges. The Head of State, when he took over power, he brought the idea of rigour and moralisation. If you understand the meaning, the context of those two words, you will know that you are myself are not helping him. 

“We are fighting that we should approve or adopt this bill to disgrace him. Because once we do anything, it is that he will be very happy to sign because we have approved it. My other colleagues have already analysed the errors in that bill. You have effected some corrections, yes, I have seen. 

“But if you look at Section 19, you still have the word “either” which means it could be English or French, whereas it is that in every aspect, the two official languages must be used. Translations should go on. I am even very surprised that the report of this bill was not written in English. But the French version came there and I don’t know wmade