NDEDIDI EYANGO AND PRESIDENT KAUNDA

PRINCE NDEDI EYANGO AND PRESIDENT KAUNDA

The story I am about to recount was told by Ndedi Eyango himself. I watched it on one of Cameroon`s private television channels some months back.

He said that after his record-breaking track, “You must calculer” came out and attracted so much attention, he realized much to his surprise that one of his fans was President Kenneth Kaunda who was not even from one of the Francophone countries where Ndedi was most likely to be known.

President Kaunda sent someone to look for Ndedi Eyango and invite him to Zambia. When he arrived in Lusaka, he was received as a guest of the president. When they were at table and everyone was eating, the president would look at him, utter a laugh of satisfaction and exclaim: “You must calculer!” Apparently Mrs. Kaunda reacted in the same way.

This was because there was a language barrier between them and their guest. Ndedi spoke French and not English while the presidential couple spoke English and not French.

Ndedi says that apart from by thus honoured by an invitation from the President, he used the trip as an eye-opener to the need to learn English as soon as possible. That, he said, was one of the main reasons why he decided to move to the USA. Needless to say, Ndebi now speaks impeccable English.