GATHER MEDIA: Let’s start at the beginning. Do you remember the first time you felt your accent was… noticed?

CHIDI:
Oh, very clearly. First week at my new job in Toronto. I introduced myself in the team meeting — “Hi, I’m Chidi, I’ll be working on the digital projects” — normal thing. After the meeting, one lady came up to me and said, smiling,

“Wow, your English is so good!”

I just stood there like, What do you want me to say — thank you or sorry?

I have two degrees in English. But in that moment, it was like my accent walked into the room before my CV.

“My voice became my unofficial passport”

GATHER MEDIA: What did that moment do to you?

CHIDI:
It made me suddenly self-conscious. I realised my accent was not just “how I talk” — to some people, it was a whole story they were making up about me.

After that, every time I opened my mouth, I felt like I was applying for a visa.

“Will they understand me?”
“Will they take me seriously?”

It’s wild how fast your voice can turn into paperwork.

Meetings, microaggressions & “Can you repeat that?”

GATHER MEDIA: How does this play out in everyday work life?

CHIDI:
It’s not always loud racism. Sometimes it’s small, steady things that chip at you.

They’ll understand everyone else, no problem. Then I speak and suddenly:

“Sorry, could you repeat that?”

Once or twice is normal. When it’s every meeting, it starts to feel targeted.

There was a presentation where I’d done most of the work. On the day, someone suggested,

“Maybe Sarah should present instead… just so it’s clearer for the client.”

And everybody nodded like it was a reasonable idea. Meanwhile, I’m standing there thinking, So my ideas are sharp but my voice isn’t good enough?

The one that finished me was:

“Your accent is strong, but we love your energy!”

What am I? A Duracell battery?

The tug-of-war inside your mouth

GATHER MEDIA: Did you ever find yourself trying to “adjust” your accent?

CHIDI:
Oh, absolutely. At some point I was living a double life. There was “phone voice,” “meeting voice,” and “talking-to-my-guys-on-WhatsApp voice.”

Little things.
Back home I’d say “wata” — water. Here, I started forcing “wah-ter” like I was acting.

First time I caught myself saying “sked-jule” instead of “shed-jule,” I literally paused mid-word. I felt like I had betrayed my village.
I even laughed and thought, Ah, so this is how it starts.

The hard part is the internal war.

“Do I talk the way that feels natural?”
“Or do I bend my mouth so they are comfortable?”

You start editing yourself before you even speak.

“An accent is not a lack of intelligence”

GATHER MEDIA: What do you wish your colleagues understood?

CHIDI:
That an accent is not a sign of low intelligence. It’s proof that I’m operating in my second, third, sometimes fourth language.

When I speak English, my brain is running background apps: my mother tongue, my pidgin, my local expressions. I’m translating, editing metaphors, searching for the closest word that will make sense here.

People hear “difference.”
What I’m actually doing is high-level code-switching — in real time.

I wish they knew:

“If you’re struggling with my accent, it doesn’t mean I’m not clear. It might mean you’re not used to listening.”

The turning point

GATHER MEDIA: Was there a moment where something shifted for you?

CHIDI:
Yes. One performance review.

My manager said,

“Clients love your insights, but sometimes your accent makes things a bit hard to follow.”

I went home angry. Proper angry. But that night, I asked myself a hard question:

“Is the solution for me to shrink? Or for the room to grow?”

I decided on one thing:
I would work on speaking clearly — pacing, structure, not rushing. But I would stop apologising for how I sound.

No more: “Sorry for my accent.”
No more nervous laugh after every comment.

Owning the room in your own voice

GATHER MEDIA: What happened when you stopped apologising?

CHIDI:
Funny enough, nothing exploded. The world did not end.

I started presenting more. I stopped trying to sound like I was born in Mississauga. I just focused on clarity and confidence.

If someone genuinely couldn’t hear me, I’d repeat — calmly — without shrinking.
If someone mocked my accent, I’d say,

“This is the sound of someone who moved across continents and still showed up to do excellent work.”

Over time, people adjusted. The same colleagues who “didn’t understand” before? Suddenly, they were quoting my lines in other meetings.

That’s when it hit me:

“Sometimes the room doesn’t need you to change your voice. It needs you to raise it.”

On younger immigrants & the pressure to blend in

GATHER MEDIA: What would you say to younger immigrants who are trying to “wash out” their accent?

CHIDI:
I get it. The pressure is real. When you’re new, you just want life to be easier.

But I’d tell them this:

“Don’t erase what you’ll later spend years trying to recover.”

Your accent is a map of where you’ve been — the schools, the streets, the songs, the aunties shouting your name from the balcony.

By all means, work on speaking clearly — that’s communication, not assimilation. Read aloud, practise, get coaching if you can.

But don’t aim for “no accent.”
Everybody has an accent. Some are just treated as the default.

“My accent is my biography”

GATHER MEDIA: How do you see your accent now?

CHIDI:
I see it as my biography in audio form.

It carries Enugu, Lagos, and now Toronto in it. It carries the courage it took to start over. It carries years of learning and unlearning.

Now when I speak in meetings, I remind myself:

“The right rooms will hear me. The wrong rooms don’t deserve my silence or my contortions.”

So, yes — my accent might close some doors with the wrong people. But it has also opened the right ones: people who value content over packaging, and who understand that brilliance can sound like many things.

At the end of the day,

“My goal is not to sound like them. My goal is to sound like me — clearly, confidently, and paid well.”