Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has called on Africans to speak Swahili to aid in unifying the continent.
In a speech on African Integration Day, which marks progress in bringing the continent together, Museveni described Swahili as a “neutral language to unite us, it is non-ethnic, belongs to nobody”.
During the speech he lamented that Africans were not more unified.
“It is easier for Africans to unite than the Europeans, but we are not taking that direction surprisingly,” he said in a tweet summarising his comments.
As a non-European language, Swahili has often been spoken about as an alternative to English, French or Portuguese as a means for cross-continental communication. But the idea has been slow to become reality.
