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Hakuna matata: Malema wants all Africans to speak Swahili


South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party leader Julius Malema wants Africans to have a common language.

Malema, whose “Mama they are here” speech went viral across Afric,a said the continent needs a uniting factor by having one common language.

He went on to suggest that the uniting language be Swahili that is an official language in Kenya and Tanzania.

Swahili is not only spoken in East Africa but also across some Central African nations among them Congo.

In the East, Rwanda and Burundi has some Swahili speakers and thus the language has been adopted in the East African Legislative Assembly.

“We need to start doing away with those things. Maybe not in our generation, but in generations to come, we must develop a common language that can be used throughout the continent. Like Swahili, if it can be developed as the language of the continent,” Malema said on Wednesday during an EFF media briefing.

He went on to call for a further unification of Africa through a single currency.

“We need a border-less continent, We need one currency, one parliament and one President that can unite the continent. We need a United States of Africa. We need one Africa,” he said.

Approximately 100 million people are able to converse in Swahili and it is among the official languages in the African Union.