World-renowned novelist, playwright, and critic Prof Ngugi wa Ngugi has said that unequal language relations have contributing to the challenges facing delivery of services under the devolved system of governance.
Prof Ngugi expressed concern that those charged with the role of delivering services to citizens under the devolution system of governance, cannot achieve that task since there is an unequal language relationship between the leadership and the citizens.
Speaking at the Kisii University on Monday during a public lecture on devolution, Ngugi expressed concern that the county leadership in charge of delivering the devolution agenda to the people cannot connect with the people through a language they understand most, making it difficult for delivery of services to reach the people at grassroots.
Ngugi observed that for devolution to succeed, the leadership first has to connect with the people through a language they understand most.
"For us to take devolution seriously, first the leadership must change the relation between devolution and the local community members' mother tongue, to enhance a connect between the leadership and the people at community levels," said Ngugi.
Ngugi decried cases of the middle-class in Africa abandoning their mother-tongues in favour of foreign languages to the detriment of their communities in terms of championing for social, political and economic development.
"The middle-class in Africa behave as if the world languages from America or Europe are more important than their local languages, leading to a disconnect between the leadership and the people they lead," he observed.
He said that such a scenario means the role of the middle-class and the learned from these communities who have abandoned their local languages can play in development, becomes hindered since they cannot connect with the people through a language they can understand most.
"If you know all the languages in the world and you do not know your mother tongue or the language of your culture,that is enslavement," Ngugi reiterated his famous quote.