The two English-speaking regions of Cameroon have been mired in an armed conflict for over three years.
Well over half a million people have forcibly been displaced within and beyond its borders (into Nigeria and other countries), and thousands have been killed in fighting and crossfires between Cameroon’s military forces and Amba Boys.
Amba Boys are the self-defense forces created by scores of local communities and self-run governments across English-speaking Cameroon, in response to Cameroon Government’s ruthless military crackdown and relentless scorched-earth policy that has rendered over 300 villages uninhabitable.
Amba is short for Ambazonia, a name the English-speaking minority coined thirty-five years ago (in 1985), to represent the aspirational nation they sought to create by breaking away from the majority French-speaking Republic of Cameroon.
The desire to break away was slowly ignited and eventually inflamed by decades-long institutionalized policies of marginalization of the English-speaking minority by majority French-speaking Cameroon.
Added to this was the government’s failure to honor its end of a bargain. The bargain, in this case, was the federal union in 1961 between Southern Cameroons (since split into today’s two English-speaking regions) and the Republic of Cameroon, and the agreements that were illegally and unilaterally revoked by the government of Cameroon in 1972, in a sham referendum.
In response to the escalating conflict, the government of Cameroon has made several gestures, some symbolic and others substantive, the majority of which have not been well received because of how they were done (i.e. in a vacuum).
The government has been avoiding initiatives that could lead to the start of a genuine peace process. Calls for a cease-fire, freeing of political prisoners, and an all-inclusive, genuine dialogue between the government and recognized leaders of the English-speaking regions, have largely been ignored.
To claim effectiveness, gain credibility, and justify its course of [military] action, the government has been leaning on a small class of officials, political party representatives, and elites from the English-speaking regions.
This privileged class of people who position themselves as moderates and champions for peace has legitimized the government’s incendiary actions and given it the political ammunition to accelerate military campaigns that continue to result in the maiming, killing, and mass-burial of unarmed children, women, and men.
All of this must surely make the founding fathers of Southern Cameroons turn in their graves.
It must surely make them want to scold, shake, shame yet implore today’s English-speaking regions’ political leaders (the members of Cameroon’s Parliament and Senate), to put politics aside and put their people’s interests ahead of theirs.
It must surely make the founding fathers want to tell this small class of privileged people, to take a page from their courageous and nearly-perilous call for Southern Cameroons’ benevolent neutrality in the Eastern Regional House of Assembly in Enugu in 1953, that led to the very creation of Southern Cameroons a year later.
Following the defeat of Germany in the first world war, the United Kingdom (hereafter ‘British’) and France took over and eventually split up the German Protectorate of Kamerun into several entities.
The French got the lion’s share and named its biggest part, French Cameroun, while the British named its parts British Cameroons.
Under the guise of economies of scale but to eventually amalgamate their newly-acquired spoils of war into their larger colony to the west, in 1922, the British appended the southern part of British Cameroons to the British Protectorate of Southern Nigeria.
Likewise, they joined the northern part of British Cameroons to the British Protectorate of Nothern Nigeria.
When the creation of the United Nations in 1946 brought the promise of self-government or independence, the colony of Nigeria went through a rapid succession of constitutional changes, resulting in a split of the British Protectorate of Southern Nigeria into Western and Eastern regions.
From then on, Southern Cameroons was administered from the Eastern Region’s capital of Enugu.
To the largely Igbo-dominated Eastern Region of Nigeria, Southern Cameroons represented a new frontier rich in opportunities for entrepreneurial and educated Nigerians alike.
The former German plantations in Southern Cameroons that had since been incorporated as a Nigerian corporation headquartered in Lagos, had attracted a large Igbo workforce not only as laborers on the fields but also as plantation managers and as administrators in British Southern Cameroons colonial offices.
Considering that the British hardly invested in education, infrastructure, or healthcare throughout their 40-year association of Southern Cameroons with Nigeria, very few Southern Cameroonians could pull themselves out of poverty and illiteracy to compete for jobs in their territory.
Over time, a sentiment of Igbo-domination began to creep into the consciousness of Southern Cameroons.
In December 1951, the first crop of Southern Cameroons representatives was elected to Nigeria’s Eastern Regional House of Assembly in Enugu and also to Nigeria’s Central Legislature in Lagos.
Considering that Southern Cameroons did not at the time have direct representation or official political parties, Southern Cameroons’ representatives pledged allegiance to the most popular party in the Eastern Region, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe.
By mid-1952, a constitutional crisis was brewing in the Central Legislature, precipitated by a power struggle between the three regional governments and the central government based in Lagos.
Nigeria’s MacPherson constitution had not only failed to effectively devolve power to either the center or the three regions but had also restricted the powers of the regional leaders within the central government.
As a consequence of these constitutional deficiencies, Dr. Azikiwe had been excluded from the Central Legislature through elections, relegating him to affairs at the regional level.
At the NCNC conference in Jos in December 1952, disagreements escalated between regional delegates, regional ministers, and central government ministers (representing the Eastern Region) on how best to force a revision of the constitution and the inclusion of Azikiwe in the Central Legislature.
The tension resulted in 3 of the 4 NCNC central government ministers getting expelled from their posts.
One of those was Dr. Emmanuel Endeley, the Minister of Labour and representative of the Victoria District of Southern Cameroons.
When the NCNC regional delegates realized that NCNC regional ministers were sympathetic to the cause of the 3 expelled central government ministers, they asked all 9 NCNC regional ministers to also resign.
Among these was Mr. Solomon T. Muna, the Eastern Regional Minister of Works and a representative of the Bamenda District of Southern Cameroons.
The loss of Muna’s ministerial post was considered payback by the Eastern Regional delegates for Southern Cameroons’ neutrality and stubbornness to pick sides within the NCNC and the warring regions.
When it became clear that the expelled ministers would not be reappointed when the cabinet was reshuffled, 9 of the 12 expelled ministers joined another party, forming an opposition wing and a minority government within the Eastern Regional House of Assembly.
This intensified the constitutional gridlock in the region.
When the issue was forced to a vote, all 13 Southern Cameroons representatives sided with the NCNC, giving it a majority in declaring a vote of no-confidence on the 6 central government ministers who had previously been asked to resign.
When the Central Legislative in Lagos resumed, what was by then called the “Cameroon Bloc” continued to declare it’s neutrality in the fight between the NCNC, the Western Region’s Action Group (AG) led by Chief Awolowo, and the Nothern Region’s Northern People’s Congress (NPC), led by Sir Ahmadu Bello.
Under intense pressure especially on Dr. Endeley within the Central Legislature, a split emerged within the Cameroon Bloc.
Dr. Endeley initially flanked by 5 others, reasoned that as Southern Cameroons’ delegates, they stood to gain little from the fight between Nigeria’s main parties.
They were a minority without proper representation within the Igbo-dominated Eastern Region and they needed to take advantage of the opportunity to recuse themselves and ask the British Colonial administration to make Southern Cameroons a region within the Federation of Nigeria.
Opposing Dr. Endeley was Namaso Nerius Mbile who wanted to stick with the NCNC. By the next day, the lines were drawn and Namaso N. Mbile, Prince Sama Ndi, R. N. Charlie, and Peter N. Motomby-Woleta supported and rejoined the NCNC.
Meanwhile, Vincent T. Lainjo, Solomon T. Muna, John N. Foncha, J. T. Ndze, A. T. Ngala, Rev. Jeremiah C. Kangsen, S. A. George, Martin N. Foju, and Dr. Emmanuel Endeley declared a break from the NCNC.
On April 14, 1953, Dr. Azikiwe declared that he and the NCNC would recognize the position of Southern Cameroons as a part of a Trust Territory and throw their support behind Southern Cameroons’ demand for separate regional status within the Federation of Nigeria.
On April 25, 1953, Chief Awolowo’s AG Party followed suit with a similar declaration.
The NCNC and AG aimed at breaking Southern Cameroons’ neutrality in each other’s favour: Azikiwe, to have more support in the Eastern Regional Parliament; Azikiwe and Awolowo, to boost their strength at the national level.
When the Eastern Regional House of Assembly resumed on May 5, 1953, Dr. Endeley and his supporters of benevolent neutrality boycotted the session and sat outside the hall on benches. To break the months-long gridlock, Lieutenant Governor Pleass dissolved the Eastern Region Assembly.
The NCNC and AG realized that they had overdone themselves by offering the “Cameroon Bloc”, regional status for little in return.
With the majority of Southern Cameroon’s delegates advocating for continued benevolent neutrality, the path to Southern Cameroons’ ascension to regional status within Nigeria was cleared.
Fast forward to February 2020. Cameroon held regional and municipal elections amid the on-going conflict.
The ruling party (CPDM/RDPC) registered crushing landslide victories in almost every region of the country and most especially in the English-speaking regions.
Rather than suspend politics — or better yet, declare benevolent neutrality to Cameroon’s political calendar and agendas to solve the conflict — the privileged political class and political party representatives from the English-speaking regions are instead working hard to increase their political gains and expand their slim majorities in the central legislature in Yaounde.
Were the English-speaking privileged class to withdraw from Cameroon’s Parliament and Senate as an act of solidarity with their people caught in this ugly war, it is likely that the path to peace would begin to more clearly be illuminated.
This simple yet incredibly powerful act would likely stem the flow of blood and push the government of Cameroon to genuinely commit to a peace process.
