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The 1961 UN-organised Plebiscite provoked serious ethnic tension, bitterness and calls from some quarters for the partition of the British Southern Cameroons. The ethnic groups that voted for independence with Nigeria were not satisfied with the results of the plebiscite and were not ready to join the Republic of Cameroon. They clamoured for the partition of the British Southern Cameroons following the voting patterns so that those who voted for Nigeria could join Nigeria freely. This article based on archival and secondary sources attempts a survey of the crisis, the requests by the defeated ethnic groups for the partition of the British Southern Cameroons and the response of the Yaoundé authorities and the United Nations. The study argues that the requests for the partition of the Southern Cameroons were made out of fear that the reunified Cameroon could lead to the domination and exploitation of the coastal ethnic groups by the more dynamic and land grabbing ethnic groups of the Bamenda Grassfields and not out of some phobia for the French Cameroonians.
2019 •
British administrative policy in Africa, and particularly in Cameroon, was generally misguided. Encyclopedia Britannica supports this largely undisputed perspective, declaring that "British rule was a period of neglect, and this, coupled with the influx of numerous Nigerians, caused great resentment. […] At independence, French Cameroun had a much higher gross national product per capita, higher education levels, better health care, and better infrastructure than British Cameroons" ("Cameroon", 2019, para. 2-3). This state of affairs is likely the result of the decision to administer the British portion of Cameroon as a constituent part of Britain's Nigerian colony. This arrangement dictated the course of events in the Southern Cameroons territory from 1922 to 1961. From this basic premise, this paper argues that the administration of British Southern Cameroons as part of the British Nigerian Colony brought about an identity crisis in which Southern Cameroonians, albeit integrated into Nigeria, predominantly chose to maintain their identity as a distinct, separate group of people. As such, the allocation of their territory to Nigeria exposed them to alien political domination, as most of the administrators in the Southern Cameroons were Nigerian. Consequently, Southern Cameroonians formed political pressure groups, created political parties and wrote petitions to the British Government as well as to the United Nations in an effort to resist the authority of what they considered to be an intrusive foreign entity. A corollary to this state of affairs was the vote in the 1961 plebiscite. With the great majority of voters choosing to sever their ties with Nigeria, Southern Cameroonians reasserted their distinct identity and called for an end to the political domination that resulted from their unsolicited association with Nigeria.
The contribution of women in the Bamenda western Grassfields of Cameroon to the struggle for liberation from colonial rule manifested itself in many diverse forms, including mass mobilization, petitions, boycotts, and engagement in overtly hostile acts. The women's revolt in this region was well thought-out and their activities in the different fondoms carefully synchronized. This organization was also the upshot of an authoritative and menacing use of symbols that startled men's institutions like kuiifuai or kwifoyn which outrightly or tacitly supported the colonial subjugation of women. These were forced into lassitude, and the result was the sovereignty of British Southern Cameroons through reunification with the Republic of Cameroon on 1 October 1961, with the territory renamed the West Cameroon State. 1
2003 •
This is a significant and timely book on the politics of belonging. It captures, with fascinating detail and insight, the current widespread disaffection with the sterile rhetoric of nation-building that has characterised much of postcolonial African politics. Until the liberation struggles of the 1990s, dictatorship only paid lip service to democracy with impunity, often by silencing those perceived to threaten national unity. Since then, individuals and groups have reactivated claims to rights and entitlements and nowhere more so than in Cameroon.
International Journal of History and Cultural Studies (IJHCS) International Journal of History and Cultural Studies (IJHCS)
The Southern-West Cameroon(s) Development Agency, 1956- 1973: Historical Evidence of Hope and Despair in Economic Development2018 •
For most parts of British rule in the Southern Cameroons and a decade into the existence of the West Cameroon state of the Cameroon Federation, many reflections were brought on board to enhance the level of economic development of the territory. This became the crux behind the creation of the Southern Cameroons Development Agency (S.C.D.A) which was transformed to the West Cameroon Development Agency (W.C.D.A) in 1961. This paper maintains that, the Development Agency from its inception in 1956 contained a lofty blueprint for the development of the territory, especially, in the agro-industrial and commercial domains. Nevertheless, the manner in which the Agency collapsed in the early seventies could be attributed to the merger in diverse proportion of unapprised state-centric practices and some irresponsible corporate cultures. This study has been built from primary and secondary sources and employed a qualitative research approach. Keywords: Economic development, hope and despair, Southern Cameroons, West Cameroons
1997 •
The political agenda in Cameroon has become increasingly dominated by what is known as the'anglophone problem', which poses a major challenge to the efforts of the post-colonial state to forge national unity and integration, and has led to the reintroduction of forceful arguments and actions in favour of'federalism'or even'secession'. The root of this problem may be traced back to i96i when the political elites of two territories with different colonial legacies-one French and the other British-agreed on the formation of a federal state.
Modern African states result from the assemblage of ethnic groups by Western colonizers. It is believed that such an assemblage cannot make a viable nation as viewed in the Western hemisphere. Colonial masters used such a premise in order to play Africans against one another within their respective territories. Accordingly, French colonial authorities used regional interest to prevent regional associations from fully supporting nationalist movement in Cameroon. This paper attempts to show that the premise whereby regional interest opposes national interest is false, as was proved during the colonial era by Cameroonian nationalists and regional associations that claimed independence and reunification. Our demonstration, which is carried out through the exploitation of archival material, interviews and newspapers, shows that regional associations are capable of transcending regional interest to defend national interest. Unfortunately, from 1945 till today, they have been the victims of the manipulation orchestrated successively by the colonial masters and their postcolonial accomplices, the rulers of independent Cameroon. The use by postcolonial rulers of the divide and rule law is an indication that the colonial legacy they have inherited is well catered for and represents a danger for Cameroonians in particular and for Africans in general who are yet to draw lessons from what happened in Rwanda and is happening in Côte d’Ivoire and Sudan. Key words: national interest; regional interest; Cameroon; regional associations; nationalism.
1999 •
African Studies Quarterly
Official Bilingualism in Cameroon: An Endangered Policy? NGUH NWEI ASANGA FON2019 •
2004 •
Research Article
Caught Between Scylla and Charybdis? Assessing the Practice of Journalism in Bamenda-Cameroon during the Anglophone Crisis, 2016-20192019 •
2019 •
Ngouo, Herbert Rostand
Language practice in work place and responsiveness to English in Maroua Ngouo20200423 113485 n3zdlc2020 •