When East Meets West: Ahidjo, Muna, Biya and Foncha
On May 6th 1972, President Ahmadou Ahidjo informed citizens of the Federal Republic of Cameroon, during an address to the National Assembly, of his intention to dissolve the federation (which consisted of the federated territories of West Cameroon [Ex-British Southern Cameroons] and East Cameroon [ex-French Cameroun]) and replace it with a unitary state.
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According to the President, the reason behind this move was to do away with the costly and cumbersome federal system of government which inhibited development, and to also move to a higher level of national consciousness by harmonizing the different political systems in the two federated systems.
A nationwide referendum was therefore scheduled on May 20th 1972. The question to be put to the electorate was:
"Do you approve, with a view to consolidating National Unity and accelerating the economic, social and cultural development of the Nation, the draft Constitution....instituting a Republic, one and indivisible, to be styled the United Republic of Cameroon?"
According to Bongfen Chem-Langhëë, the results were as follows:
"At the national level, 3,236,280 people registered for the referendum. Of these, 3,177,846 voted in favour of the unitary state, 176 voted against it, 1,612 ballots were declared null and void, and 56,646 voters abstained. At the level of the state of West Cameroon, 731,850 persons registered for the referendum, 716,774 of whom voted for the unitary state and 89 voted against it, and 13,934 registered voters abstained, 1,053 ballot papers were declared invalid. In the state of East Cameroon, there were 2,461,072 votes in favour of the unitary state, 87 against it, and 559 ballots declared null and void, out of a total of 2,504,430 registered voters."
34 years after that fateful vote, there is a widespread view, particularly among citizens of the former the former state of West Cameroon, that Ahidjo's reunification was nothing but a ploy aimed at the political subjugation, economic exploitation, cultural assimilation, and marginalization of the former British Southern Cameroons by the more populous French Speaking "La Republique du Cameroun". Others, however, still insist, like Ahidjo did in 1972, that reunification was a noble (and so far successful) attempt at putting together the "great Cameroonian nation" that was broken apart by French and British colonization.
In the following two postings, we will read from two citizens of the former Southern Cameroons who hold diametrically opposed views about the outcome of the 1972 referendum. First we will read from retired Chief Justice Sam Endeley (now paramount chief of Buea) who believes that a united Cameroon has been a worthwhile experiment in nation building and which "has an image we can be proud of".
We will also read from Nfor Ngala Nfor, one of the most uncompromising critics of the “Kamerun Idea” and Vice Chairman of the nationalist Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC), who considers May 20th 1972 as "the day the last nail was put on the coffin of annexation of Southern Cameroons."
The declarations by Chief Endeley and Ngala Nfor are really what the "Anglophone problem" is all about; the inability of Anglophone Cameroonians to agree on what their problem is, and then searching for an acceptable solution to their people.
This is a characteristic that is unique to the people of Southern Cameroons - even when "black legs" were collaborating with the Apartheid regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia, or with the Indonesian regime in Eas Timor, there was at least that universal acknowledgement that the problem was racial discrimination and colonization.
In Cameroon, however, the Anglophones are not able to define their problem - hence Endeley and Nfor speaking past each other and describing two totally opposing realities. So which is fact and which is fiction - and, can that "elusive middle ground" ever be found????
It will be easy to simply brandish one (Endeley) a "traitor" or the other (nfor)a "radical secessionist" (depending on where one stands on this issue). But that will be a simplistic reaction to a real problem.
In my opinion, until this dichotomy within the Anglophone community is resolved, the second-class citizen status of Southern Cameroonians will continue. The problem is really less about La Republique or La France. it is about our divisions and antagonisms that cripple us. United we stand, but divided ... we are easy prey to the Francophone ruling elite and majority...
Posted by: Ngosso Din | May 19, 2006 at 03:16 PM
Personally I agree with you Ngosso, that the divisive tendency and the inability to fine a common ground amongst Anglophones themselves to this" ANGLOPHONE PROBLEM" is the issue that MUST be resolve now by anglophones or Southern cameroonians themselves which ever name you choose to use.
One thing remains very clear. those who see the Unification as good for Southern Cameoon are those minority previlleged ones whose parents and themselves have benefited from the dubious intention in the Unification act.The idea of unification may not be a bad idea but the "INTENTION" for it were and are still BAD.
The truth in the matter is this, down in the mind of Chief Endeley,he is convinced that Unification has not benefited the Southern Cameroonian, but himself been a benefactor of the system, will definitely see nothing wrong in the system that has so much reduced the common man in the streets of Sounthern Cameroon.
The shallow reeasoning of the scenerio of maltreatment he sited above of the Ibos to a former stateman, could that be worst than what we the Southern cameroonians get today at this age of unification and globalisations? The Answer lingers down in his heart.
if we shunted those ills from the Ibos in the 50's and today get worst than that in the 21st century from a so called brother, could this be a good sign?
I would have liked Chief Endeley to tell Southern Cameroonians, why all that was in Southern cameroon is either been paralysed or transfered to the french Zone? Could it be that Southern Camerooninas are not good enough?
Please Most respected Chief Endeley, leave a legacy for yourself,Speak your truth quietly and slowly, at your age and position, you have nothing to loose, but if at your age you still want to bootleak for just for its fun, then is a sad thing indeed. THE ANSWER IS BLOWING IN THE WIND. For the evil that MEN do will live after then, so Chief will your utterances be quoted now and in generations to come.
Posted by: Emah | May 20, 2006 at 04:08 AM
Let me mildly disagree with the premise of the the above two bloggers. The problem has never been the "inability of Anglophone Cameroonians [I prefer Southern Cameroonians] to agree on what their problem is ..." Just as the problem was never whether slaves universally agreed on what their problem was; nor the Americans under British rule; nor the French and other Europeans under nazi occupation and rule; nor Black South Africans ...
This moral relativism is wrong, and that Southern Cameroonians are shifting the burden of morality to the shoulders of the victim is most unfortunate. During slavery, British rule in the American colonies, Nazi rule in Europe, an overwhelming force in the hands of the wicked was used to subdue less prepared and less endowed peoples.
In the west, William Wilberforce and others chided those on whose shoulders rested the moral burden of the practice of slavery, not the slaves who were the victims. They did not accuse the slaves of their "inability to agree ..." The rest of mankind stood and assisted the French and others to defeat nazism, many Africans fought alongside their European metropolitan governments to defeat Hitler and fascism. We can make a clear moral judgement on whose side right and wrong is as far as the representations made by Messrs Endeley and Nfor. We should also make it clear that the problem is an illegal occupation of one country by another, and unfortunately. A COLONISATION. Situations like this ultimately lead to wars prior to their resolution. Southern Cameroonians must become mentally prepared for this eventuality.
However, especially as the growing resistance to this French colonisation of the Southern Cameroons intensifies, the reactions that one will probably find as hinted in these two views, and already rampant in the discourse in a colonized Southern Cameroons, will not be different from the diagnosis made by Dr. Frantz Fannon in his psyshological analyses and profile of the colonised and oppressed:
"Where individuals are concerned, a positive negation of common sense is evident. While the settler [coloniser] or the policeman has the right the livelong day to strike the native [colonized], to insult him and make him crawl to them, you will see the native reaching for his knife at the slightest hostile or aggressive glance cast on him by another native; for the last resort of the native is to defend his personality vis-a-vis his brother. Tribal feuds only serve to perpetuate old grudges buried deep in the memory."
This is a classic predicament of the colonized. A predicament always exploited by all colonizers as a matter design, and one we must all guard against in the Southern Cameroons. Southern Cameroonians of goodwill shall not play into the hands of the colonizer by casting ourselves as the source of our colonial status, using crotches such as our "inability to agree...", instead of demanding an end to this inhuman enterprise by the real colonizers: FRANCE, through her "Vichyesque" fascist petainiste junta in Yaounde.
Posted by: sj | May 21, 2006 at 01:53 PM
That picture of the "big four" speaks volumes. Wouldn't it be a great idea if our SCNC friends came up with a pictorial history of SC from the days in Nigeria to today? That is something that many people will be able to understand and relate to...
Posted by: Damas | May 31, 2006 at 02:02 PM