Book Review: Indigenous Minorities & Good Governance in Cameroon

Reviewed by Dibussi Tande

Ewumbue-Monono, Churchill. 2001. Indigenous minorities and the future of good governance in Cameroon: An inquiry into the politics of local governance in the local councils of Fako Division, 1866-2001. Buea, Cameroon: Center for Research on Democracy and Development in Africa. 345 pages (5000 francs CFA)

With municipal and legislative elections barely a few weeks away a review of Ewumbue-Monono’s, Indigenous minorities and the future of good governance in Cameroon is timely. It is, without doubt, the most comprehensive and most detailed book ever written on the political history of Fako division in the Southwest province of Cameroon. Not only does it give a detailed chronology of local politics in Fako in the past century - with a detailed list of all councilors in Fako since 1935 - it also tackles head-on, the native-settler problem which has bedeviled ethnic relations and politics in the division for close to a century – a snapshot at the problem of indigenous minorities which has bedeviled politics in many coastal and urbban regions of the country (Fako, Wouri, and Mfoundi divisions, for example) since the reinstitution of multipartyism in 1991.

Ewumbue-Monono painstakingly explains how the political dynamics of native - settler relations in Fako division during the Southern Cameroons and West Cameroon eras has ultimately shaped the present-day political perceptions and actions in Fako division - today’s political clashes between the CPDM and the SDF with the underlying disagreements over the levels of native-settler representation in local political institutions are merely a new chapter in a decades-long battle for the control of local councils and local resources in Fako.

Using rare archival material from the national archives in Buea and other primary sources, Ewumbue-Monono demonstrates how various governments, from the British colonialists to the Biya regime, have either helped to attenuate or worsen the marginalization of Fako indigenes within the Fako political system. The British tried to control the problem by giving special protection to the indigenous population; the Foncha government accentuated the problem by actively promoting settler domination with its policy of “Nativization” of settlers; the more moderate Jua government tried to mitigate the problem by reversing some of the radical polices of the Foncha government; the one-party system helped control the problem thanks to a certain measure of party discipline and consensus; and multiparty politics burst the lid wide open as the SDF and CPDM battled for political – and ethnic - supremacy in the division.

Although Ewumbwe-Monono convincingly demonstrates that the settler political machine has tried to use its numbers and solid ethnic organization to dominate local politics in Fako, he is also crystal clear in his contention that the political marginalization of Fako natives in Fako division is largely due to the failures of the Fako elite to live up to their historic responsibility. According to the author, the Fako elite are more concerned with personal and class/bourgeois interests rather than with the general interest of the people of Fako. As a result, they have always dealt with political challenges in dispersed ranks. And, when it has suited their narrow interests, these same elite who complain about “graffi domination” have not hesitated to team up with settler ethnic lobbies to sideline other Fako natives whom they see as threats to their political aspirations. Because of this war of attrition, the number of Fako natives with national political profiles has whittled down considerably.

In the last chapter of the book, Ewumbue-Monono’s proposes a series of solutions aimed at giving indigenous minorities adequate protection and representation in Fako division. These range from the institution of quotas in local councils to the territorial reorganization of Fako councils and the creation of a list-ward system. It should be noted that most of the recommendations that give special protection to the indigenous minorities are at odds with what a number of scholars on Cameroon have proposed in recent years. In fact, most of these scholars have argued that the inclusion of minority protection clauses in the 1996 constitution accentuated, if not set the stage for the stranger-native dichotomy in Cameroonian politics in the 1990s. These scholars are proponents of the one-man-one vote democratic system where the majority always carries the vote.

However, after reading Ewumbue-Monono’s book, it is impossible not to hold the view that majority rule without some sort of minority protection is a subversion of the very democracy that majority rule is supposed to incarnate. Also, this work clearly shows that the native-settler problem, particularly in present-day Southwest province, is not a recent phenomenon but one that is as old as Southern Cameroons itself.

Unlike many other books and articles dealing with the issue of indigenous minorities in Cameroon, this is not an invective-filled, emotional “anti-graffi” rant. Ewumbwe-Monono has produced a well-researched scholarly work where even the most controversial data speaks clearly to the issue and steers clear of ad hominem attacks and ethnic baiting.

This book is not just about “local” Fako politics. It is about the broader issue of political representation in a democratic polity; it is about that perennial conflict between majority rule and minority rights; it is about the age-old question of who is a native of a particular region and who is not; and it also about the reasons behind the continued dominance of the CPDM in those areas of Fako division where the native population is still in the majority and the SDF’s dominance in areas with a settler majority.

All of these issues will once again burst to the surface of the local and national political scene as municipal and legislative elections with the July 22 twin elections in Cameroon. This book is therefore a must-read for anyone even remotely interested in the politics of Fako division in particular, and in the internal dynamics of Cameroon’s democratization process in general.  It is an even greater asset to those individuals who intend to run for office in Fako division.

Click here for an article which I posted on this blog last year on the concept of indigenous minorities in Cameroon.

Churchill Ewumbue-Monono is also the author of MEN OF COURAGE: The Participation of Independent and Civil Society Candidates in the Electoral Process in Cameroon. A Historical Perspective, 1945-2004. Limbe, Cameroon; Design House, 2006. 237 pages.

Comments

[Mbang John]

Arguments in the Churchill Ewumbue-Monono treatise can be extended to any tribal group in Cameroon. Take the NWP, the Santa-Nkwen-Mbengwi triangle, occupying no more than 100 square kilometers dominates NW politics.

People forget that Wum, Nkambe, Banso, Bali, Batibo and Ngie exist. The Fako man simply has to rise up and compete on the strength of his advocacy and practice. The basis cannot be hatred of fellow countrymen. The Peter Oben Ashu doctrine is pure hypocrisy.

[Aloys Minuga]

True nationalists are yet to arise and take on the challenge of addressing the problems of all Citizens, not just the narrow focus on one's own tribe or division.

The "native-settler" debate expediently trades away the civil rights of citizens in a republic to the narrow interests of minorities, aided by the megaphones of elites. No party can seek an existence in a Republic and simulatneously attempt to degrade the legitimate aspirations of other parties.

All Cameroonians are indegenous to Cameroon. The property and civil rights of Cameroonians must be protected by law everywhere regardless of tribe. Natives cannot sell land to other citizens and have it back. There has to be competition to public offices. Native culture is part of national culture and cannot be protected from evolving under the impetus of social change.

Despite the tribalistic focus of elites, it is pacifying to note that the youth, i.e. UB students, staged a strike last year to protest grotesque regionalism by Fame Ndongo the Minister of Higher Education. There therefore is hope in the youth to build a better country based on equality and merit.

[Elvis Kameni]

Hi Aloys,

Rather than adopting the Ahidjoist approach to citizenship which tried to create a nation by edict, we should construct the new nationalism on the realities of our country. This is not aobut selling land and wanting it back. It is about representation which is at the core of all truly democratic systems. Why call for competition for office when we know that a certain group of people will always vote a certain way not out of nationalism but ethnicity. Will it be fair to have 41 Bayangi councilors in the Bamenda council in the name of "democracy" and completely leave out mankon natives? Does it make sense for the 15 or so MPs representing the SW province in Parliament to all come from the Beti region in the name of democracy? Just as America is taking or trying to take into acocunt its racial reality, so too must African countries take into acocunt their ethnic realities - this is what the Cameroonian law refers as the the sociological composition of each municipality - our municipal councils must be a true reflection of those councils.

The rebellion against Fame Ndongo at UB was never about tribalism but about the distortion of existing rules and creating new ones in the fly.

So majority rule MUST prevail. But Minority Rights MUST also be respected. We cannot reject the rights of ethnic minorities on the one hand, and then turn around to clamour for the rights of linguistic and national minorities such as the citizens of Southern Cameroons.

So what do we want; a country where we can have 50 Beti ministers out of a cabinet of 60 in the name of "nationalism" or one where we seek to strengthen regional and ethnic identification with the "nation" by spreading those 60 cabinet positions across the country?

In my opinion, the choice is a very clear one...

[Aloys Minuga]

Elvis,

I too see your point. It is good you mentioned minority rights in the United States. These rights can only be faily represented through equal opportunity and fair competition.

What is the point putting a lack lustre candidate in charge of more capable people? That will be to whose benefit?

Get tough and set yourself a higher standard. That which is easy is waste of time.