The Crime of Funè

I was watching the television earlier in the day and I saw one newcomer to Nollywood being interviewed, I got so upset and after a while I had to change the channel.

I got upset with the way he forced himself to speak phonetics, (funé like we call it in Nigeria) saying things like “wai nort” (why not), “wars” instead of “was” and “wit” instead of “with” all with funé (Mscheew). Afterwards, it got me thinking about our young people and how our society has turned some of them into fakes. The school system has failed us, our Federal and State Universities are no longer how they used to be; the Private Universities have taken over and any young person who does not travel abroad to study wants to go to a Private University; unfortunately, these Private Universities cost an arm and a leg.

The “In-thing” is to study abroad, it has become a norm for this current generation of school leavers, and it is almost like your parents have deprived you if they do not send you to a foreign University and parents are constantly under pressure to give their children the best.

What happens is that when the ones who studied abroad come back to the country with their foreign certificates and accents, they make the ones who studied here have a complex, the Nigerian scholars want to meet up and so their fake accents surface; if they cannot fake the certificate, at least they can fake the accent and sometimes I do not blame them.

Everyone seems to have a complex in Nigeria, a job seeker who studied abroad and has an American or British accent has more chances of getting hired than the job seeker who studied here in Nigeria and has a thick Nigerian accent except the person is a genius. Still wonder why our young people now pretend to have foreign accents?

To some individuals, “funé” comes naturally, my friend’s eight year old son started speaking English with an undiluted American accent, the moment he started speaking; I always tell my friend that if this child was born in the olden days, he would have been tagged “a child from the gods”. Some other people learnt and mastered theirs and you cannot fault them. You know the authentic funé when you hear it, I just met a girl whose funé is on another level but she speaks with every sense of humility.

When I hear our Nigerian actors and actresses blow “funé” during interviews I get weak, it is a different thing when they act, then they are in character and sometimes some behaviours are acceptable during acting. If you had a short sojourn (two years and below) in the United States or United Kingdom and will not let us rest from your fake accent then something must be wrong somewhere.

I am happy when people try to pronounce English words properly, it means that they pay attention, but when they start to add “r” and speak through their noses then there is a problem. Just learn to pronounce your words well and you are good, no need for all the drama. Some of the people I know who speak impeccable English without the drama of funé include my lovely cousin and a prolific writer Chika Unigwe, another writer, Chimamanda Adichie, former CBN Governor, Charles Soludo and the renowned writer and poet, Wole Soyinka

As much as I call out those with very fake accents, I also like to acknowledge that the society we find ourselves in has a lot of blame in the way our people are turning out especially the young ones, if the major corporate entities employ people based on the country of their certificates or their ability to speak with good British or American accent then you leave the disadvantaged ones no other option than to create their own accent – “EngriIgbo, EngriHausa or EngriYoruba.

Some parents are abettors of the crime of funé, most of us want our children to have a good accent; please don’t blame us, we have seen enough to know that for our children to get into the corporate world very easily, they must have a foreign degree and accent to compliment. Some organisations even go the extra mile to create new departments for foreign graduates. We also cannot blame the organisations too much; they would rather employ graduates of foreign universities who have not falsified their ages and who were not affected by strikes and other national issues.

I must say that I do not have any problem with those who have either of the two accents, but what I am concerned about is when people speak very good English with the whole accent but cannot speak their native languages; this is not right at all.

Some people who do not have any accent at all just amuse me when they try to sound like the person they are talking to during conversations; this happens a lot during visa interviews, as soon as they hear the interviewer’s voice, they start trying to speak like the person that they are talking to, if only they knew how stupid they sounded.

One thing I must say is that while you blow your funé and coach your children to do the same, please remember that most Nigerian languages will soon be extinct, and so teach your children your language. When you send them to that foreign school, the phonetics will definitely come.