Nairobi News

Cabinet ministers in Uganda will start taking Kiswahili lessons every Monday from 9am to 10am. This comes after Uganda early this month adopted an East African Community (EAC) resolution to make Kiswahili an official language for the bloc alongside English.

With English and Luganda being the most widely spoken languages, the cabinet also recommended the teaching of Kiswahili in primary and secondary schools be made compulsory and examinable. However, teaching of the language shall commence in 2023.

Additionally, Uganda Airlines was instructed to adopt Kiswahili as one of the languages used by the flight crew to communicate with passengers. The national carrier flies to more than 15 destinations including Tanzania and Zanzibar where Kiswahili is the main language.

The 1995 Ugandan Constitution had provided the use of Kiswahili as the second official language, but it had not been implemented.

For many years in Uganda, Kiswahili has been associated with the dark days military coups and guerilla warfare. It was widely perceived that Kiswahili was the language used by state functionaries who terrorized the citizens.

However, during a Parliamentary forum on East Africa, Rebecca Kadaga, the First Deputy Prime Minister of Uganda and Minister for East African Community Affairs disputed the notion that Kiswahili was the language of oppressors.

“We were oppressed by the Europeans but we speak their language so we should be proud of our own African language. We have made arrangements so that the cabinet members will first take lessons and then continue with the normal cabinet meeting later,” she said.

Kiswahili is spoken in more than 14 countries and was adopted as the official language of the East African Community (EAC) in 2017. It was then adopted by the African Union in February as an official working language.