A Cameroonian content creator has posed the question nobody thought to ask: how is Nigeria surrounded by French-speaking countries and still doesn’t speak French?
Daniel Unah, who migrated from Cameroon to Nigeria to live what he calls his “Nigerian Dream,” laid out the geography in a video that’s now circulating. Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Benin Republic—all Francophone. And Nigeria, sitting in the middle, speaking English, unbothered.
“It’s like you’re living in a neighbourhood where everybody speaks French, but you are confidently just there saying, ‘Ah, I don’t understand what you’re saying. I speak English,'” he said.
But the real observation came next. It’s not just that Nigeria doesn’t speak French. It’s that the neighbours are learning English to do business with Nigeria.
“All of us have to learn English just to speak with this one person,” he said. “If that’s not influence, then I don’t know what you call it.”
He kept circling back to the absurdity of it. “Nigeria’s influence is on march.” The countries around it aren’t adapting Nigeria to them—Nigeria is making them adapt.
Unah has built his platform documenting Nigerian infrastructure and entertainment since relocating. His content usually celebrates the country. This time, he’s just genuinely baffled by the geopolitics of a neighbourhood where one house refuses to learn the local language and somehow still runs the street.
How did Nigeria find itself in this position? He doesn’t know. Nobody told him. He’s just here for the content.
