{"id":18570,"date":"2024-05-07T15:53:26","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T14:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/?p=18570"},"modified":"2024-05-07T15:53:29","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T14:53:29","slug":"false-senegal-did-not-change-its-official-language-from-french-to-arabic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/false-senegal-did-not-change-its-official-language-from-french-to-arabic\/","title":{"rendered":"False! Senegal did not change its official language from French to Arabic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Claim: An X<\/a> account (@_AfricanSoil<\/a>)\u00a0claimed that the government of Senegal had adopted Arabic as its official language while jettisoning French.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verdict: The claim is false. A check on the X<\/a> handle of the Senegalese President, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, did not contain such information. Also, a search on Google Search engine did not bring out any reports from credible news organisations.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Text<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The movement to wean African countries off their colonisers’ legacies has gained traction<\/a> over the years. Most colonised African countries attained independence at the end of the 1950s and 60s. Despite their independence, these countries adopted political, cultural, and economic policies from their colonisers, with language being the most conspicuous.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The colonisers’ language inadvertently became the official language of these countries with diverse ethnic and racial groups. However, a growing feeling is that such continuous relations with the colonisers have not benefited most of the populace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Senegal, its new president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, had campaigned<\/a> on the need to \u201csecure its sovereignty,\u201d which experts translate to mean \u201creforming the CFA franc, introducing a new national currency, ensuring mutually beneficial international partnerships, and renegotiating unbalanced natural resources contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the president is yet to state his direction on the country\u2019s relation with France, its coloniser, a claim has gone viral that the government has announced the adoption of Arabic as its official language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An X<\/a> account (@_AfricanSoil<\/a>) that posted the information tweeted, \u201cSenegal announces it is adopting Arabic as its official language, abandoning French.\u201d The post questioned why the country did not adopt Swahili, which it claimed is spoken in over 10 African countries, or the local language, Wollof, which is widely spoken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho advises him? He must be monitored closely,\u201d the post threatened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The May 1, 2024, tweet had 31,400 views, 119 comments, 185 retweets, and 618 likes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the comments by @ZengFuey<\/a> was an anonymous quote, “A colonised mind will replace one foreign language with another foreign language and call it progress.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 DUBAWA decided to investigate this claim because of its potential to misinform the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verification<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A search on Google search engine using the keyword phrase \u201cSenegal announced the use of Arabic as official language<\/a>\u201d brought out news reports from blogs, with none being from credible news organisations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two reports, this<\/a> and this<\/a>, did not indicate when the announcement was made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third from Middle East Monitor<\/a>, deleted<\/a> but archived here<\/a>, claimed the announcement was made after a cabinet meeting on Sunday, April 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a check on the official government website showed no cabinet meeting on April 24. Also, the website contained no information on the country\u2019s official language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the X handle of the Senegalese President (@PR_Senegal<\/a>) did not mention a change in the country’s official language, nor did it state he presided over a cabinet meeting on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was observed that tweets made by the president as of May 2 were in French and not Arabic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The claim that Senegal has announced a change in its official language from French to Arabic is false.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This report is produced for the DUBAWA 2024 Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking Fellowship in partnership with the Daily Trust Newspaper to facilitate the ethos of truth in journalism and enhance media literacy in Nigeria.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claim: An X account (@_AfricanSoil)\u00a0claimed that the government of Senegal had adopted Arabic as its official language while jettisoning French. Verdict: The claim is false. A check on the X handle of the Senegalese President, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, did not contain such information. Also, a search on Google Search engine did not bring out any reports from credible news organisations. Full Text The movement to wean African countries off their colonisers’ legacies has gained traction over the years. Most colonised African countries attained independence at the end of the 1950s and 60s. Despite their independence, these countries adopted political, cultural, and economic policies from their colonisers, with language being the most conspicuous. The colonisers’ language inadvertently became the official language of these countries with diverse ethnic and racial groups. However, a growing feeling is that such continuous relations with the colonisers have not benefited most of the populace. In Senegal, its new president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, had campaigned on the need to \u201csecure its sovereignty,\u201d which experts translate to mean \u201creforming the CFA franc, introducing a new national currency, ensuring mutually beneficial international partnerships, and renegotiating unbalanced natural resources contracts.\u201d While the president is yet to state his direction on the country\u2019s relation with France, its coloniser, a claim has gone viral that the government has announced the adoption of Arabic as its official language. An X account (@_AfricanSoil) that posted the information tweeted, \u201cSenegal announces it is adopting Arabic as its official language, abandoning French.\u201d The post questioned why the country did not adopt Swahili, which it claimed is spoken in over 10 African countries, or the local language, Wollof, which is widely spoken.  \u201cWho advises him? He must be monitored closely,\u201d the post threatened. The May 1, 2024, tweet had 31,400 views, 119 comments, 185 retweets, and 618 likes. One of the comments by @ZengFuey was an anonymous quote, “A colonised mind will replace one foreign language with another foreign language and call it progress.”  DUBAWA decided to investigate this claim because of its potential to misinform the public. Verification A search on Google search engine using the keyword phrase \u201cSenegal announced the use of Arabic as official language\u201d brought out news reports from blogs, with none being from credible news organisations. Two reports, this and this, did not indicate when the announcement was made. The third from Middle East Monitor, deleted but archived here, claimed the announcement was made after a cabinet meeting on Sunday, April 28. However, a check on the official government website showed no cabinet meeting on April 24. Also, the website contained no information on the country\u2019s official language. In addition, the X handle of the Senegalese President (@PR_Senegal) did not mention a change in the country’s official language, nor did it state he presided over a cabinet meeting on Sunday. It was observed that tweets made by the president as of May 2 were in French and not Arabic. Conclusion The claim that Senegal has announced a change in its official language from French to Arabic is false. This report is produced for the DUBAWA 2024 Kwame Karikari Fact-Checking Fellowship in partnership with the Daily Trust Newspaper to facilitate the ethos of truth in journalism and enhance media literacy in Nigeria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"hannibal_claim_source":"","hannibal_source_label":"","hannibal_card_color":"blue","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_bluesky_share_type":"","_mastodon_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[1571,3812,3815,123],"tags":[],"verdict":[],"ppma_author":[4129],"class_list":["post-18570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fact-check","category-headline","category-homepage","category-mainstream"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R6dE-4Pw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":4129,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"faruk-shuaibu","display_name":"Faruk Shuaibu","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/senegal.png?fit=1213%2C703&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18572,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18570\/revisions\/18572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18570"},{"taxonomy":"verdict","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/verdict?post=18570"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dubawa.org\/dir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=18570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}