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 16th 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.
