THE MBOA AWARDS 2012: THE ENGLISH CAMEROON ENTERTAINER’S NIGHTMARE

Before I begin, I just want to say one thing: I’M BACK!!! It’s been a while, and your writer decided to pause, sit back and take a look at the entertainment atmosphere and ponder on the reminiscent issues in English Cameroon Entertainment. To my delight, some people are actually changing, but when one looks at issues like the recent MBOA AWARDS 2012, I shiver with fright. I fear for the future of English Entertainment in Cameroon.

Allow me define the MBOA AWARDS from a linguistic perceptive. This is just an award ritual created by the French Entertainers, for the French Entertainers, and dominated by the French Entertainers. Period. Now, just because they are hosting it on our region doesn’t mean they are going to give us anything. They just nominated the English entertainers for appeasement sake, but at the end of the day, we all knew it was a rip-off.

Now, permit me recount how it all transpired. The public were told that transportation would be provided for those who had to attend the show by noon. Some people left their homes as early as 9:00am. Flash forward to 6:00pm. Everyone was still huddled up at M1 Studios, no bus in sight. Who was in charge of the arrangement? The one and only Galaxy. Haven’t we had enough of this guy?

Those who left Yaoundé were stranded in Douala waiting for a ghost bus, one that never arrived. Now, at 6:00pm, some people were left with no option but to pay their transport to the venue, Semme Beach Hotel, Limbe. Worse still, performing artists from Buea also paid their own fare to the show ground. And when everyone arrived the gate, they were expected to pay an entrance fee of 1.500 FCFA, much to the dismay of the general public.

Now to the award show proper. Can anyone tell me who’s better than Jovi? I don’t think so. But he never got any award. Even the great music video director, February 16^th was snubbed by his French counterparts on his work with Jovi. This was a large scale and blatant discrimination by the French. It was never my intention to attend the show, because I had envisioned its future. I also need to point out that the hall was packed full...with ‘celebrities’...from Buea.

While I blame the French entertainers, (headed by Tony Nobody) for duping us, I also blame some of our fame-thirsty English Cameroon artists for being so gullible and naive, thus allowing them to be scammed. This is a sign that we need to concentrate on making a solid foundation for Anglophone entertainment and stop relying on our brotherly enemies. As long as we keep following them around, we will always be what they want us to be: FOLLOWERS.