French Language Monolingualism in the Bicultural-Bilingual Cameroon in the Era of the Predominance of English as a Global Lingua Franca

October 1, 2023 marked the sixty second anniversary of the independence and reunification of British Southern Cameroons and the French La Republique du Cameroun, culminating in the creation of the new federated state of Cameroon, a bilingual nation with English and French equally recognized constitutionally as its official languages. While the Cameroon government has since reunification relentlessly promoted bilingualism as vital to the consolidation of national unity and socio-cultural integration, cultural and linguistic barriers still exist. There is clear disparity between the rhetoric and practice of bilingualism owing to the dominance of French. The willful use of the French language in the country’s English-speaking regions by French-speaking administrators and civil servants militates against the effective implementation and practice of bilingualism in the country despite the diminishing influence of French and the hegemony of English around the globe. This article contends that the continued dominance of French to the detriment of the English language presents a flawed image of Cameroon as a bilingual nation. Moreover, the relegation of English to a subordinate position by the francophone-dominated regime is a strategic faux pas that puts young Cameroon graduates at a competitive disadvantage in an increasingly hyper-competitive global knowledge and digital economy where it is the predominant lingua franca.