Why can’t we do something like this?

The video below shows President Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea (Guinea Ecuatorial in Spanish) declaring last 30 June 2011 that the Spanish language is now one of the official languages of the African Union:

Before the historic June declaration, the African Union only had four official languages: English, French, Arabic, and Portuguese.

President Obiang is also the chairman of the African Union.

President Obiang’s country has Spanish as one of its official languages. Like the Philippines, it was a former Spanish overseas province. Curiously, aside from Spanish, Equatorial Guinea also has French as an official language when (to the best of my knowledge) it was not even colonized by France!

Equatorial Guinea was able to accomplish what seems to be impossible for this supposedly Hispanic country of ours. No offense (in all honesty, I am an admirer of Obiang’s linguistic policies), but between the two nations, we are more Hispanic than the Equatoguineans. So why couldn’t we do something like this? Oh wonder of wonders…

Felicitaciones Señor Presidente Obiang por un trabajo bien hecho. Sin duda, usted es un héroe del idioma español no sólo en África sino el mundo hispánico.