Have you ever been to the Governor’s Office or the SDO’s Office in Yaounde? Or have you ever visited Yaounde to apply for a passport at the police headquarters and you set out to certify some documents at the nearby offices?

Try it one day and your eyes will shed a lake of tears. The sign board there reads: ‘Governor’s and Mfoundi Prefect’s Offices’. Therefore, 50-year-old ENAM graduate, Otto Wilson Joseph, who hails from Isangele, West of the Mungo, has been happily dashing in and out of his office for seven months now, without even having the reflex to peep at the sign board on his building. The earlier he does so, the better, because what is written on it, is all but an official translation.

We understand that Roger Moise Eyéne Nlom who occupied the office prior to Otto’s arrival could not understand what we are talking about, but Otto can easily understand this. After all, Cameroon is a bilingual country, as some say, so, even secretaries are bilingual; they need no translator, they can even go further to use machine translations.

The people of Bamenda woke up in November carrying handkerchiefs as they hollered because of the sacrilege they saw hanging over the Commercial Avenue. A blue banner with two white stripes hung close to a well known bank and read thus: ‘Government Bonds Public Offering State of Cameroon, Subscription period 24rd November to 23th December 2014’. Even a Class 3 kid in GBPS Fundong will know that 24 goes with ‘th’ and 23 with ‘rd’. As for the announcement proper, let translators do their job.

This is glaring proof of the kind of sham posted on a daily basis in the name of translation in this land of crayfish. Given the official translation rates in Cameroon, that banner would not cost FCFA 10,000 for a good translation. All fingers are pointing at Moroccan-owned SCB Cameroon Bank as the people who hatched such a translation, given that they are the arrangers of this arrangement. How would a Northwest business man decide to buy bonds with that kind of language hanging over his head?

Speaking to The Post’s Yerima Kini Nsom in February 2013, Soule Saidou Nchouat, Senior Translator, Terminologist and Researcher at the University of Yaounde, said “Cameroon is a French Bilingual Country.” I have the feeling Soule was right. Just as Anglophones have been transformed to second class citizens, so has the language suffered.

James Zeh Wung, in his 2008 Master’s dissertation titled; Language Policy and Practice: The Case of English in the Cameroon Civil Service, publishes statistics that buttress Soule’s point. According to Zeh Wung, out of the 175 notices posted around offices, 10 were in English/French bilingual versions, 166 in French and nine in English of which two were exclusively in English while the remaining seven were also in French, in absolute terms. Therefore, 5.71 percent were bilingual, 94.85 percent were in French, 5.14 percent in English, and 1.14 percent exclusively in English. What you do with injustice always backfires.

In Ministries and Government offices, the translation units are packed to the rafters with pseudo-translators. Bilingual teachers shipped out of ENS are translation unit heads. ENAM graduates with little or no knowledge of languages are in command. This scenario can be compared to appointing a butcher Head of the Surgical Unit in the Kaélé District Hospital. Hence, instead of scalpels for incisions, the butcher will use kitchen knives.

In his article published in February 2002, The Misfortune of Being a Translator or Interpreter in the Public Service, Oscar-Théophile Ndoumi, Senior Translator/Journalist and a culture and communication specialist, states that; “Translation units are being invaded by a certain category of people, fly-by-night civil servants who can more or less be identified through their intrigue-laden and careerist professional history.

These administrative “projectiles” are generally devoid of the competence required for the tasks assigned to them within their host institutions. They are in the foreground, they are unit heads – nothing less – and do not seem in the least embarrassed by an ill-assigned crown which is certainly too heavy for their usually empty and sometimes hollow heads.”

The fun about the scenario is that, a compendium of legal instruments exists governing the profession and the practice. They include, the Constitutions of 1961 and 1996, Article 1, Paragraph 3: “The official languages of the Republic of Cameroon shall be English and French, both languages having the same status. The State shall guarantee the promotion of bilingualism throughout the country.”

Decree No. 75/770 of 18 December 1975 to lay down the Special Rules and Regulations of the corps of Translation and Interpretation Services civil servants; Circular No. 001 of 16 August 1991, on the practice of bilingualism in public services and semi-public establishments; Instruction No. 03 of 30 May 1996, on the preparation, signature and publication of bilingual versions of official instruments and so on. So, who are those spitting on the laws of the land? Who are the quacks occupying offices which are not theirs? Who are these baboons who gained translation skills over night and hatch the rubbish we see every day?

Alphonsius Ategha, Senior Translator, Subtitler and Lecturer of Translation, in his article; ‘The De-professionalisation of Translation and Interpretation in Cameroon’, published in September 2014 prior to the International Translation Day, stated that; “On May 21, 2014 (in the wake of the celebration of the National Day!), a journalist, during the 7:30 pm television news in English, was forced to sight translate (into English), a press release issued in French from the Presidency of the Republic on the State visit the Chadian Head of State paid to Cameroon. The poor journalist was truly a sore sight to behold!”

Ranndy Obia, in his 2010 M.A dissertation, goes further to highlight the laxity at the CRTV when he states that; “Alarmingly, of all the journalists the researcher talked to at the CRTV, none knows about the existence of a translation unit at CRTV (...) When personnel of the translation unit were interviewed, they reported that the translation unit only translates documents on tenders, decisions from the board of directors meeting and administrative documents. Journalists do not bring their scripts to be translated by the translation unit.” With such attitudes; why would you not hear journalists say things like Regional and Local ‘Collectivities’ instead of ‘Authorities’. As if ‘Collectivities’ existed, in the first place.

An anonymous saying goes thus: “Most people believe that if you are bilingual you can interpret or translate. That’s about as true as saying that if you have two hands, you can automatically be a concert pianist.” If there were an organ in Cameroon responsible for quality control and harmonisation of Cameroon official terminology, the eyesore on Otto’s office and the sham on the Commercial Avenue in Bamenda will never repeat themselves. And as our people say, ears that do not listen to advice, accompany the head when it is chopped off.

When visiting Kribi, avoid going to the National Employment Fund. Instead of ‘Local’ Branch they wrote ‘Locally’. Halleluia?