Thursday, May 21, 2020
Monday, March 9, 2020
Just
Published: Nation at Risk: A Personal
Narrative of the Cameroonian Crisis by Peter Wuteh Vakunta, PhD.
i-Universe, Inc., Bloomington. 2012. 206
pp. Paperback $14.00. ISBN 978-1-4697-9974-2
I am obligated to concede that the overall tenor of
my remarks in Nation at Risk: A Personal Narrative of the Cameroonian Crisis could
easily be misconstrued as requiem for what we now know as the Republic of
Cameroon. So, let me caution from the outset that this is not the intent of
this book, the sole purpose of which is to shine the searchlight on the
dysfunctional government of Cameroon under President Paul Biya, a minuscule man
and matching mind, endowed with a gargantuan ego. Those who wish to comprehend
the apocalypse toward which the Cameroonian nation is being propelled by the
rogue governance of Mr. Biya will do well to study the mind of the man at the
helm. Mr. Biya enjoys playing at and for power. The diabolism inherent in the
phenomenon of power is something he relishes.
Yet, the politics of power is for him, an intellectual challenge. Thus,
manipulation, divisive tactics, cajolery, patronage, double-talk, exploitation
of weaknesses, blackmail, backstabbing, occultism, cronyism, influence
peddling, and the cultivation of apparent detachedness form the armory of this
wily politician nicknamed L’homme Lion
or Lion Man.
The thought behind the crafting of this book was
nourished by the fervent belief that change is the offspring of audacity and strength of
character necessary to break out of the mold of conventional reasoning, the temerity
to pose intriguing questions that have never been asked before, the
perspicacity to imagine things as they have never been fathomed before , the courage
to challenge the status quo, the rebelliousness needed to express new thoughts
at the risk of being pilloried, and the desire to be free from the shackles of mental servitude that confines
people in perpetual paranoia of offending people at the helm.
I subscribe to the aphorism that a modicum
of measured resistance, controlled defiance, and reasoned disobedience are
recipes for positive change in the community of humans. The fear to offend the
untouchables of our society inhibits our ability to engage in constructive
criticism in which resides the capacity of a society to change and evolve. Our reluctance
to hold our leaders accountable hinders our ability to rise up against abuse of
power, injustice, corruption, and impunity. For thirty years, Cameroonians have
been victims to one man’s Machiavellian dictatorship; they have seen how one
man—Mr. Paul Biya—surrounded by a cabal of tribesmen has hijacked the entire
governmental apparatus with the aid of the military and stayed in power anti-constitutionally.
Like all global dictators, Mr. Biya has learned the ropes of despotic governance quickly:
once in power, put people of your tribe in key positions: military generals,
ministers, beef up your personal protection, that way, you cannot be overthrown
by a coup d’état, bribe the military by means of disproportionately elevated
salaries given that soldiers are the mainstay of a dictatorship. This is the
dictatorial blueprint the tenets of which serve as Mr. Biya’s governmental
modus operandi.
Armed with a mix of nihilistic contraptions, Mr. Biya has developed a
callously thick skin; he no longer feels accountable to the people of Cameroon.
Elections are rigged with impunity year in year out, opposition party leaders
are cowed into submission through torture and blackmail, the nation’s wealth is
brazenly misappropriated by Mr. Biya, his wife, Chantal Biya, and close circle
of cronies, nicknamed ministers who live in opulence. In contradistinction,
impoverished Cameroonian rank and file are left to their own devices in a land
bereft of good roads, urban transportation system, hospital supplies, home
industries, and schools. The youths are at daggers drawn with a leadership that
has failed to acknowledge their existence.
The average Cameroonian finds it hard to understand why their president
has mortgaged the nation’s natural resources—crude oil, forest products, land,
and minerals. Little wonder, a critic of Mr. Biya’s regime, George Ayittey, has painted the
following portrait of him:
A suave bandit who has reportedly amassed a personal fortune
of more than US$200million and the mansions to go with it, Biya has beaten the opposition into complete
submission. Not that he’s worried about elections—he has rigged the term-limit
laws twice to make sure the party doesn’t end any time soon (Ayittey, 2011:15).
The
impotency of Cameroon is a reflection of Mr. Biya’s sense of failure as a
statesman. Power has corrupted him absolutely, and all the more disastrously
because he has come to identify Cameroon and her natural resources with his own
personal wealth. Mr. Biya has no compunction about reducing Cameroon to a
wasteland, as long as he survives to preside over a mere name. Totally lacking
in vision and moral rectitude, he is like a mole trapped in a warren of
tunnels.
Interestingly,
Mr. Biya has no idea what country he is governing. Beyond the reality of a
fiefdom that has dutifully nursed his insatiable thirst for power and
transformed him into a tin-god, he has only superficial knowledge of Cameroon.Consequently,
he is incapable of grasping what is being conveyed to him about the legitimate
grievances of a marginalized constituent of the fragmented country he
rules—Anglophones— these people who speak with the
resolute voice of self-determination. In Mr. Biya’s mind, these people could
not possibly be part of the Republic of Cameroon that he knows. It is only by
eliminating Anglophones entirely that Cameroon can become the entity that Mr.
Biya recognizes.
When
the French pressured Cameroon’s first postcolonial Head of State, Mr. Ahmadou
Ahidjo, to grant Mr. Biya occupancy of
the presidential palace at Etoudi in 1982, I admonished that Mr. Biya would
prove more ruthless than his predecessor. There were many who thought then that
I was being overly alarmist. Now, of course, we know what stuff the man is made
of, and the worst I am afraid, is yet to come.
Mr. Biya will be satisfied only with the total annihilation of every
aspect of Cameroon that he cannot mentally grasp. He will find peace and solace only in
silencing the voices whose language he cannot comprehend.
In sum, Nation
at Risk: A Personal Narrative of the Cameroonian Crisis is a compass intended to give
Cameroonians a sense of direction as they grope around in search of light at
the end of the proverbial tunnel. It behooves
Cameroonians of all creeds to come to the
realization that people deserve their leaders. Most importantly, they must
rethink the sagacious
words of Edmund
Burke who once said: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is
for good men to do nothing."[i] The didactic value of
this book resides in its comprehensibility to people from all walks of life and
social strata eager to know what makes Cameroon tick. The language is free of
verbal sophistry. Casual readers and professionals with a genuine interest in the
geopolitics of Cameroon would find this book a delight to read.
In Nation at Risk, Peter Wuteh Vakunta, a prolific writer in his own right, has successfully pieced together a compelling narrative of the many facets of the crisis that has plagued Cameroon during the more than three-decade presidency of Mr. Paul Biya. Lucid and captivating, this landmark volume provides a seminal contribution to readers’ appreciation of the social, political, economic and cultural events that have shaped Cameroon's history from the time of independence from colonial masters to date. Vakunta’s penetrating analysis of the lackluster governmental modus operandi of President Biya is a must read for all Cameroonians and friends of Cameroon who feel deeply about the future of this often forgotten African nation.
Dr. Peter Ngwafu Ajongwa , Associate
Professor of Public Administration and Political Science & Director, MPA
Program at Albany State University.
The
Task of the Cameroonian Intellectual
By
Peter Vakunta, PhD
At a time when the Republic of
Cameroon is squirming under the pangs of misgovernment, bastardization of
political power, lethal tribalism, and endemic corruption, it is germane to
pose the following thorny questions: what does it mean to be an intellectual in
Cameroon today? Are Cameroonian intellectuals merely servants of special
interest groups or do they have a greater social responsibility? As I see it, the Cameroonian intellectual has
the choice either to side with the downtrodden and marginalized or with the
powerful. Without fear or favor, the genuine intellectual has to have the
courage to blow the whistle on blatant human rights violations. Most
importantly, the intellectual must have the forum in which to talk back to
authority, the more so because unquestioning subservience to authority in Cameroon
and elsewhere in contemporary society is tantamount to a threat to an active
and sane intellectual life. In this
essay, we will endeavor to address these issues as eloquently as possible.
Celebrated literary and
cultural critic, Edward Said, sees the intellectual as a scholar whose role it is to speak the truth to
power even at the risk of ostracism, imprisonment or death: “Real intellectuals…are
supposed to risk being burned at the stake, ostracized, or crucified”(7).
Thinking along the same lines, Jacoby (1987) defines the intellectual as “an
incorrigibly independent soul answering to no one” (quoted in Said, 72). Both Said and Jacoby agree that the
intellectual is supposed to be heard from, and in practice ought to be stirring
up debate and if possible controversy.
In light of the status quo in
Cameroon under the presidency of Mr. Paul Biya, it behooves the intellectual to
speak the truth, ruffle feathers and rock the boat without caring whose ox is
gored. We must caution that speaking the
truth to authority should not be construed as some sort of Panglossian[i]
idealism. Speaking the truth to the powers-that-be amounts to carefully
weighing the options, picking and choosing the right one, and then sagaciously
articulating it where it can do the most good and trigger desired change. The
Cameroonian intellectual’s voice may be lonely, it nonetheless, has resonance
because it associates itself the aspirations of a people, the common pursuit of
a shared ideal—the Summum Bonum.
Said observes that “the hardest
aspect of being an intellectual is to represent what you profess through your
work and interventions, without hardening into an institution or a kind of
automaton acting at the behest of a system…”(121). He further notes that the
intellectual who claims to write only for himself or herself, or for the sake
of pure learning , or abstract science is not be, and must not be believed. To
my mind, nothing is more reprehensible than the intellectual frame of mind that
induces avoidance, the turning away from a principled position which you know
to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. You shy away from
appearing politically ‘incorrect’; you are scared of seeming untowardly polemical
because someday you hope to earn a big prize, perhaps even a ministerial appointment
or ambassadorship in your home government. In the eyes of a bona fide
intellectual, these habits are corrosive par excellence. If anything can
denature and neutralize an intellectual it is the internalization of such
nefarious habits.
Personally,
I have encountered these corrupting habits in one of the toughest unresolved
problems plaguing the wellbeing of Cameroonian polity—the Anglophone Problem,
where fear of speaking out about one of the thorniest national questions in
Cameroonian history has hobbled, blinkered and muzzled many who know the truth
and are in a position to serve it. The Cameroon Anglophone Problem manifests itself in the
form of vociferous complaints from English-speaking Cameroonians about the
absence of transparency and accountability in state affairs, in matters
relating to appointments in the civil service, the military, the police force,
the gendarmerie and the judiciary.
In short, the Anglophone Problem raises questions about
participation in decision-making as well as power-sharing in a country that
prides itself on being Africa in miniature. The Anglophone Problem is the cry
of the disenchanted, the socially ostracized and the oppressed people of
Cameroon. Anglophone Cameroonians incessantly lament over the
ultra-centralization of political power in the hands of a rapacious Francophone
oligarchy based in Yaoundé, the nation’s capital, where the Anglophone with
limited proficiency in the French language is made to go through all kinds of torture
in the hands of supercilious-cum benighted Francophone bureaucrats who look
down on anyone speaking English. [ii] Richard Joseph
talks of “the neutralization of Anglophone Cameroon” on page 82 of his seminal
work, Gaullist Africa: Cameroon under
Ahmadu Ahidjo (1978).
Despite the
abuse and vilification to which outspoken advocates of self-determination for Anglophone
Cameroon may be subjected, the truth deserves to be spoken, represented by an
unafraid and compassionate intellectual. The Cameroonian intellectual need not
climb a mountain or rooftop in a bid to declaim. The genuine intellectual must speak his or
her mind quietly and clearly where they can be heard. Most importantly, they
should present their views in such a manner as to drum up enough support for an
ongoing process, for instance, the cause of justice for marginalized Anglophone
Cameroonians. Informed Cameroonians know
that the statutes and constitutional stipulations on official bilingualism in
Cameroon, for instance, is a sham. Arguing along similar
lines, Ayafor posits: “There has been unrelenting efforts and frustration at
the fact that language policy has not contributed to national integration
through linguistic fusion” (2005, 140). Unlike most other African countries
which give pride of place to indigenous languages, French and English,
languages of predatory imperialists, remain official languages in Cameroon in
stark contradiction of the national constitution which stipulates: ‘The State
shall guarantee the promotion of bilingualism throughout the country. It shall
endeavor to protect and promote national languages (Article 1.3: 5).
No intellectual can speak up at all times on every single issue
plaguing national life. But, there is a compelling duty to address the
constituted and authorized powers of one’s own country, which are accountable
to citizenry, especially when those powers are exercised in a manifestly
abusive, arbitrary, and disproportionate manner. For the Cameroonian
intellectual, there is no sitting on the fence; there a reality to be faced,
namely that Cameroon is an extremely diverse nation with over 236 indigenous
languages and cultures, an abundance of natural resources and accomplishments,
but it also harbors a redoubtable set of internal inequities and inequalities that
cannot be ignored, not the least of which are unsound regional development
paradigms and human rights abuses. Cameroon is a signatory to the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed in 1948, reaffirmed by
every new member state of the UN. Cameroon is also a signatory to solemn
international conventions on the treatment of workers, women, and children.
None of these documents says anything about less equal ethnic groups, tribes or
peoples. The aforementioned instruments stipulate that all
human beings are entitled to the same freedoms. Of course, these rights are
callously violated on a daily basis in Cameroon. Joseph decries human rights
abuses and oppression in Cameroon as follows: “Not only has the political
system been devised to deprive the citizen of any real say in the choice of his
governors, he has also been divested of any control over their
actions…confronted with concerted abuse by agents of state… the people of
Cameroon are legally powerless”(115).
Faced with this state of affairs, the onus rests with the
Cameroonian intellectual to raise moral questions as they involve one’s homeland,
its power, and its mode of interacting with its citizens. This does not mean opposition for opposition’s
sake. What it means is asking questions, making distinctions, and committing to
memory all those issues that we tend to gloss over in our rush to collective
judgment. Arguing along similar lines, Said maintains: “The intellectual today
ought to be an amateur, someone who considers that to be a thinking and
concerned member of a society one is entitled to raise moral issues at the
heart of even the most technical and professionalized activity as it involves
one’s country…”(82). There has been a lot of idle talk lately about something called
‘political correctness,’ which Said qualifies as “an insidious phrase applied
to academic humanists, who, it is frequently said, do not think independently
but rather according to norms established by a cabal of leftists…”(77). The
caveat is that blind adherence to this dogma is likely to curtail individual
and collective freedoms. The corollary
is that the intellectual does not represent an inviolate icon but a personal
vocation with a slew of issues, all of them having to do with a hybrid of
emancipation and civil rights issues.
In a nutshell, intellectualism
in Cameroon should be deemed fundamental to the attainment of knowledge and
basic freedoms. Yet, these constructs acquire meaningful interpretation, not as
abstractions but as experiences actually lived by the individual intellectual.
This is true of intellectuals in Cameroon as it is of intellectuals elsewhere. Thus, the fundamental task of the Cameroonian
intellectual is explicitly to rationalize local problems, universalize national crises, assign greater
scope to the sufferings of his or her people, and last but not least, to
associate those experiences with the suffering of underprivileged global
citizens. This does not imply being an arm-chair critic of the home government
at all times, but rather of thinking of the intellectual vocation as
maintaining a state of constant alertness, of a perpetual willingness to not
let half-truths blind us from seeing reality through a broad prism.
Notes
[i] Person who views a situation with unwarranted
optimism. [cf. Dr Pangloss , a character in Voltaire's Candide (1759)]
|
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Works cited
Ayafor, Isaiah, Munang. “Official Bilingualism in Cameroon: Instrumental of
Integrative
Policy?” In Proceedings of the 4th
International Symposium
on Bilingualism.Ed. James Cohen et al., Somerville: Cascadilla Press,
2005.
Cameroon, Government. Constitution of
the Republic of Cameroon. Yaoundé.
Government
printer, 1996.
Jacoby,
Russel. The Last Intellectuals: American
Culture in the Age of Academe.
New York: Basic Books, 1987.
Joseph,
Richard. Gaullist Africa: Cameroon under
Ahmadu Ahidjo. Enugu:
Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1978.
Said,
W. Edward. Representations
of the Intellectual. New York: Vintage
Books, 1994.
Vakunta,
P.W. Cry my Beloved Africa: Essays on the
Postcolonial Aura in
Africa: Bamenda: Langaa, 2008.
Voltaire. Candide. Paris: Haitier, 1986.
About
the Author
Professor
Vakunta teaches at the United States Department of Defense Language Institute, POM-CA
Genesis of the Ambassonian Revolution
Genesis of the Ambazonian Revolution
Introduction
Genesis of the Ambazanian Revolution is a walk down
memory lane. It encapsulates the events that preceded the uprising of
English-speaking Cameroonians against the government of President Paul Biya in
2016. This write-up is construed as a requiem for what used to be known as the
Republic of Cameroon. The overriding objective of this article is to shine the
searchlight on the manner in which the dysfunctional government of Paul Biya
constitutes the raison d’être of the unsightly genocide that is ongoing in
Cameroon. Those who wish to comprehend the apocalypse toward which the
Cameroonian nation has been propelled by the rogue government of Mr. Biya would
do well to study the actions of the men at the helm of government in Cameroon.
Paul Biya and his henchmen have toyed with power to the detriment of
nationhood. This is a compelling narrative of the many facets of the unresolved
perennial socio-political problems that have snowballed into what has been
christened the Anglophone Crisis, or the Ambazonia Revolution. This captivating
write-up provides readers with an insight into the social, political, economic
and cultural events that have spurred English-speaking Cameroonians to take up
the cudgels to do battle with their oppressors. It is a riveting account of the
manner in which Paul Biya’s lame-duck government has systematically
underdeveloped Cameroon to the point of no return.
You might have read Animal Farm, the 1945 classic written by George Orwell. Many in my generation had to read this book in order to sit for the London General Certificate of Education (GCE) examination. Over the years I have come to see the relevance of the message in Orwell’s novel even more as I ponder the ongoing Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon. The plot of the book is centered on the dissatisfaction of farm animals who felt they’re being mistreated by Farmer Jones. Led by the pigs, the animals revolted against their oppressive master, and after their victory, they decided to run the farm themselves on egalitarian principles. However, the pigs became corrupted by power and a new tyranny was established. The famous line: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” (92) still rings true to date and reminds me of the fate of Ambazonians in that eerie farmland code-named La République du Cameroun. The socio-political status quo in Cameroon at present is a parody of Animal Farm. The novel is a replica of what has come to be referred to as the Anglophone Question, in other words, the Anglophone Crisis.
The Anglophone Question
After fighting together to free Cameroon from
French and British hegemony, French-speaking Cameroonians now tend to lord it
over their English-speaking compatriots. There is no gainsaying the fact that
there exists a generation of English-speaking Cameroonians who now find
themselves at a historical crossroads and would like to know where they belong.
Many Anglophone Cameroonians are now asking themselves why they are condemned
to play second fiddle in the land of their birth. The unfair treatment meted
out to English-speaking Cameroonians by arrogant, condescending francophone
compatriots in positions of power is a time bomb that needs to be defused before
it explodes to do irreparable damage. Unfair discrimination sows seeds of
discord regardless of where it is practiced. Prejudice, in all its shades and
colors, is deleterious in all parts of the world. A celebrated American
literary icon, Maya Angelou (1986) once said: “Prejudice is a burden which
confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.”
(p.5)
The cohabitation between Anglophone and
Francophone Cameroonians has been branded a marriage of convenience by scholars
and students of post-colonial politics in Africa. In fact, the uneasy
co-existence between these two linguistic communities has been likened by some
critics to the attitude of two travelers who met by chance in a roadside
shelter and are merely waiting for the rain to cease before they continue their
separate journeys in different directions. No other metaphor could better
depict the frictional coexistence between Anglophone and Francophone
Cameroonians. More often than not, the perpetrators of this macabre game of
divide and rule are the French-speaking political leaders who take delight in
fishing in troubled waters. They divide in order to conquer to the detriment of
the wretch of earth[i],
or the proverbial man in the street. In so doing, they stoke the flames of
animosity and whip up sentiments of mutual suspicion and distrust between Anglophones
and Francophones at the expense of nation-building. Many of them have been
heard to make statements intended either to cow Anglophones into submission or
to incite them into open revolution such as the Ambazonian revolution which we
are witnessing today. These self-styled leaders have mounted the podium a
zillion times to chant to the entire world that there is no Anglophone Problem
in Cameroon. This type of hogwash has now come to bite them in the butt.
Nemesis has uncanny ways of getting at its culprits. The plain truth is that
there is a palpable feeling of discontent and dissatisfaction among Anglophones
in Cameroon. Questions that remain unanswered as we trudge through the
Anglophone conundrum are numerous: Are Anglophone Cameroonians enjoying equal
treatment with their Francophone counterparts in the workplace? Are Anglophone
Cameroonians having their fair share of the national cake? Do they feel at home
in Cameroon? These and many more interrogations constitute what has been
labeled the Cameroon Anglophone Crisis.
The Cameroon Anglophone Question manifests
itself in the form of complaints from English-speaking Cameroonians about the
absence of transparency and accountability in matters relating to appointments
in the civil service, the military, the police force, the gendarmerie [ii] and the judiciary. In short, the Anglophone
Problem raises questions about participation in decision-making as well as
power-sharing in the country. This is not a figment of any Anglophone
Cameroon's imagination. It is real, tangible and verifiable. The Anglophone
Question is the cry of an oppressed people, lamenting over the
ultra-centralization of political power in the hands of a rapacious oligarchy
based in Yaoundé, the nation’s capital, where Anglophones with limited
proficiency in the French language are made to go through all kinds of odds in
the hands of cocky Francophone bureaucrats who look down on anyone speaking
English. The Anglophone Crisis stems from the supercilious attitude of
French-speaking Cameroonians who believe that their Anglophones compatriots are
less intelligent, sloppy and worse still, unpatriotic, and therefore, should be
asked to seek refuge in another country! This francophone bigotry compounded by
superciliousness has given rise to the rampant use of derogatory
slurs such as” les Anglophones sont gauches”[iii],
“c’est des ennemis dans la maison”[iv],
“ce sont les biafrais[v] and
so on.
The outcome of this anti-Anglophone sentiment
is the Ambazonian War which the world is witnessing today. Francophone
Cameroonians have the misconception that Anglophone Cameroonians are unreliable
and untrustworthy, and thus, undeserving of positions of leadership. This
explains why key ministerial positions are the preserve of French-speaking
Cameroonians. Such ministries include: Defense, Finance & Economy and Territorial
Administration. It should be noted the current Minister of Territorial
Administration, Paul Atanga Ngi, is a rarity in Cameroonian body politic. Mr.
Biya chose Atanga Ngi because he hails from Bamenda, the hotbed of Anglophone
rebellion in Cameroon. Ngi is there to perform Biya’s dirty job. This
notwithstanding, Anglophobia has also led to the appointment of Francophones
with no working knowledge of the English language to ambassadorial positions in
strategic countries such as the United States of America, Great Britain,
Germany, Nigeria and South Africa where they wind up making a complete fool of
themselves linguistically and culturally speaking. The presidency of the
Republic and its ancillary organs are “no-go” zones for most Anglophone Cameroonians.
Although political appointments in this country ought to be done in conformity
with the constitutional “regional balance paradigm”, it is common knowledge
that distrust of English-speaking Cameroonians has made the implementation of
this constitutional stipulation a dead letter over the years. It should be
noted that the relegation of Anglophone Cameroonians to the periphery in
matters pertaining to political appointments has nothing to do with competence.
In fact, the cream of Cameroon’s intelligentsia are Anglophones thanks to the
existence of world-class Anglo-Saxon secondary schools such as Sacred Heart
College in Mankon, St. Joseph’s College in Sasse, Our Lady of Lourdes in
Bamenda, Cameroon Protestant College in Bali and a host of others that have
churned out well-groomed administrators, scientists, technocrats, and more.
These colleges are trail-blazers and cradles of the solid general education
that English-speaking Cameroonians identify with.
Sadly enough, the administrative system in
Cameroon does not reward merit. In fact, the requiem for meritocracy was sung
in this country the very day the colonizers left for Europe. Giving reward to
those who deserve it has no place in Cameroon. Corruption and nepotism are the
yardsticks used in the selection of candidates to work in the public service
and other workplaces in this unfortunate geographical expression called Ngola[vi].
Little wonder, the Berlin-based watchdog, Transparency International, has
declared Cameroon one of the most corrupt nations in the world. In the same
vein, Marilyn Greene (2005), Press Fellow from
the United States of America, in an interview with Jeff Ngwane Yufenyi in
the November 23, 2005 edition of the Post, pointed out: “Corruption
is a plague affecting everyone from top government officials to poor folks in
the street.”(1) She made the statement in Bamenda as a reaction to the outcry
on corruption in Cameroon at the opening of a two-day seminar on Media
Excellence in Cameroon. Corrupt practices affect the manner in which revenue
from natural resources is used in Cameroon. Statistics indicate that about
sixty percent of Cameroon’s wealth in natural resources is located in
Ambazonia, the English-speaking part of the country. Yet the Francophone region
takes the lion’s share of the national budget intended for building roads,
hospitals, schools and other social amenities.This state of affairs has been
described by some critics as jungle justice. We are where we are today in
Cameroon, saddled with an Elephant in the house because of mutual
misunderstanding between la Répulique du Cameroun and Southern
Cameroons [vii].
Open hostility toward Anglophones reached its
acme many years ago when English-speaking Cameroonian students protesting
against discrimination on the basis of the language of instruction at the
University of Yaoundé went on strike and chanted the “We shall overcome”
rallying song. Francophone members of government with limited proficiency in
the English language accused them of singing the national anthem of a foreign
country, namely Nigeria, and told Anglophones students to go and live in
Nigeria if they were not happy in Cameroon. In other climes, these officials
would have been asked to resign without further ado. Not so in Cameroon where
nonsensical statements such as the aforementioned actually earn accolades. In a
similar vein, the Anglophone clamor for the decentralization of the political
system in Cameroon has been branded by some narrow-minded Francophones as an
Anglophone-Bamileke [viii] conspiracy to
overthrow the government of President Paul Biya Mbivodo. Political myopia is
one of Cameroon’s cankers. There has been unbridled attempts by French-speaking
Cameroonians to whip up anti-Anglophone sentiments in order to score political
points. The Cameroon GCE Board imbroglio that bred fire and brimstone in the
early 1990s is a case in point. The saga to create a separate examination board
for the General Certificate of Education Examination for Anglophones brought
Cameroon to a virtual standstill because French-speaking Cameroonians could not
fathom how Anglophone underdogs could have the temerity to demand equal
treatment with their overlords. There is no gainsaying the fact that the
colonial linguistic legacy that makes Cameroon a bilingual (English and French)
post-colony is a divisive factor.
The Language Question in Cameroon
The question of language policy in Cameroon
remains a bone of contention. There is no language policy put in place to
prevent the marginalization of linguistic minorities. The interpretation of the
letter and spirit of the law is left to the whims and caprices of
French-speaking judges who are ignorant of how the Anglo-Saxon judicial system
works. It should be noted that one of the events that triggered the outbreak of
the Ambazonian War was a strike led by Anglophone lawyers [ix]. The disparity between
the Anglo-Saxon Common Law system inherited from Great Britain and Francophone
Napoleonic legal system has resulted in several instances of miscarriage of
justice in Cameroon. Miscarriage of justice was self-evident, for
example, during the infamous Yondo Black trial way back in the 1990s when an
Anglophone witness was deprived of his right to testify on the grounds that the
presiding judge could not understand English. One wonders what has become of
the pool of translators and interpreters who are vegetating at the Presidency
of the Republic and other ministries in Yaoundé.
The Cameroon Radio & Television (CRTV) is
another case in point. It has been so “french-fried”[x] that
ninety-five percent of the programs are broadcast only in French to the
detriment of English-speaking Cameroonians. Programs in English obtained from
overseas are rapidly translated into French to serve the needs of the
Francophone majority. The language of training and daily routine in the
military, police and gendarmerie is French. This is the root cause of the
Anglophone crisis in Cameroon. There is no turning a blind eye to it. It
will come back to haunt not just the present generation of Cameroonians but
also posterity. It may even affect Africa as a whole because Cameroon is,
indeed, Africa in miniature. The onus is on Cameroonians to face reality and
seek a lasting solution to this perennial problem. Of all the burning issues
that remain unresolved in Cameroon in the wake of independence, the language
question is the thorniest. The imbroglio has degenerated into the well-known
identity crisis among English-speaking Cameroonians, a crisis which this writer
has captured in a poem titled “Identity Crisis”:
I don’t quite know who I am.
Je ne sais pas au juste qui je suis.
Some call me Anglo;
D’autres m’appellent Frog.
I still don’t know who I am
Je ne sais toujours pas qui je suis.
My name c’est Le Bamenda;
My name is L’Ennemi dans la maison;
My name c’est le Biafrais;
Mon nom is underclass citizen;
My name c’est le maladroit.
Taisez-vous! Shut up!
Don’t bother me!
Ne m’embêtez pas!
Don’t you know that je suis ici chez moi?
Vous ignorez que I belong here?
I shall fight to my dernier souffle
To forge a real name pour moi-même.
You shall call me Anglofrog!
Vous m’appelerez Franglo!
Shut up! Taisez-vous!
Don’t bother me!
Ne m’embêtez pas!
Vous ignorez que I belong here?
Don’t you know que je suis ici chez moi?
I shall fight to my last breath
To forge a real lingo for myself.
I’ll speak Français;
Je parlerai English
Together we’ll speak camfranglais;
C’est-à-dire qu’ensemble,
We’ll speak le Camerounisme,
Because ici nous sommes tous chez nous
A bon entendeur salut!
He who has ears should hear![xi]
More than forty years after accession to
political independence, it is unimaginable that there is no reliable indigenous
language policy in Cameroon. Unlike most other African countries
which give pride of place to their indigenous languages, French and English,
languages of colonial masters, remain the official languages of Cameroon in
stark defiance of the national constitution (1996) which stipulates:
The State shall guarantee the promotion of
bilingualism throughout the country. It shall endeavor to protect and promote
national languages (Article 1.3: 5)
In this regard, Cameroon stands out as a sore
finger in the African linguistic landscape. The question that begs asking here
is why Cameroon, which boasts two hundred and forty-seven indigenous languages,
does not have an official indigenous language policy. How come we are still
dressed in borrowed robes many decades after independence? How can we talk of a
Cameroonian national identity without an indigenous language policy? Are
Cameroonian policy-makers oblivious of the fact that language conveys the
culture of a people? Language does not only serve as the cultural repertory and
memory-bank of a people; it is also an embodiment of continuity and change in
the historical consciousness of a community of speakers of the language. Each
native language in Cameroon reflects the concerns, attitudes and aspirations of
its speakers. In other words, our indigenous languages carry with them the
habits, mannerisms, and identity of its native speakers. Don’t Cameroonians
have the right to articulate their own cultural identities? They cannot portray
their cultural identities by speaking in foreign tongues; by bowing to
assimilation. Bjornson (2001) has described assimilation in Africa
as: “The adoption of European tastes, languages, customs, and colonial
government policies by Africans.”(p.19) Arguing along similar lines in his
world acclaimed song Redemption Song (1980), late Bob Marley
urged colonized peoples the world over to “emancipate themselves from mental
slavery.” Language is the soul of a people. Language transports culture. If you
destroy a man’s language, you have destroyed the man. Sadly enough,
Cameroonians relish borrowed cultures to the detriment of their indigenous
cultures. We continue to speak in foreign tongues many years after the
departure of our banana-skin former masters. This is attributable, in the most
part, to government lack of interest in promoting indigenous language
education.
This leaves us with the irksome feeling that
we have not yet liberated ourselves from mental slavery. Is it not true then
that a true slave is not necessarily the one in chains? The acculturation that
has taken deep root in Cameroon has had as a corollary the denigration of our
traditional values. How many times have you heard mind-boggling comments like “this
man na kontry, he no sabe tok gramma”[xii] in
reference to someone who strives to promote his mother tongue by speaking it as
often as he can? Confiant et al. (1993) perceive this self-abnegation as an
anomaly and points out that the tragedy of the colonized is the servile manner
in which he tries to “portray himself in the color of elsewhere.”(p.80) Franz Fanon
(1964:15) describes Africans who behave in this manner as people having “black
skin” but wearing “white masks.” To fight cultural imperialism, it is incumbent
on Cameroonians to defuse what Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1986) calls the “cultural
bomb”. He maintains:
[…] But the biggest weapon wielded and
actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the
cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief
in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of
struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in
themselves.”(p.3)
Language experts have pointed out that
multilingualism is indispensable in today’s global village. In fact,
monolingualism, they argue, is now an anachronism in the contemporary
multicultural societies in which we live. Bilingualism is an added advantage to
the bilingual individual and to the nation as a whole given that what is
acquired in one language is transferable to the second language. This
is an enriching acquisition. It broadens the mindset of individuals in the
linguistic community, and lubricates social intercourse. Studies have shown
that multilingual individuals exhibit a higher degree of cognitive ability than
monolinguals. Surprisingly, Cameroon’s bilingual education system has proven to
be a nonstarter on account of tribal hostility and bigotry. The linguistic
question is an offshoot of the animosity that separates Anglophones from
Francophones in Cameroon. Revolting disdain for the English language has led
French-speaking Cameroonians to downplay the use of English as an official
language although the constitution of the Republic of Cameroon (1984) is
explicit: “The official languages of the Republic of Cameroon shall be English
and French, both languages having the same status.” (Article 1.3: 5)
It needs to be pointed out that the second
fiddle role that has been assigned to English-speaking Cameroonians by
French-speaking members of government has made the implementation of the
nation’s bilingual education program a stillborn. There seems to be a
deliberate attempt on the part of Francophone Cameroonians to undermine and
eventually destroy the Anglo-Saxon culture in Cameroon. Among their many
grievances, Ambazonians are protesting against linguicide (linguistic genocide)
in Cameroon. It irksome to realize that in some English-speaking towns and
cities in Cameroon such as Buea, Tiko, Kumba, Bamenda, Bali, Nso and Nkambe
one finds billboards with inscriptions written in French only. Tiko,
a town in the South-West province is a case in point. At the entrance into this
town, there is a billboard that reads: “Halte Péage!” [Stop Toll Gate!]How do
the powers-that-be expect the average man who has never been exposed to French
to understand what this inscription means? The case of Tiko is not an isolated
one. There are myriads of such billboards throughout the national territory.
Similar linguistic hotchpotch is found at the
Nsimalen Airport in Yaoundé. At Nsimalen commuters find some stomach-churning
gibberish that reads: “To gather dirtiness is good.” This is a word-for-word
rendition of the French: “ramasser la saleté c’est bien.” The French in this
sentence leaves much to be desired. But it is even more annoying to
realize that there is no English language translation of the notices posted on
the billboards. The creators of this unintelligible stuff know very well that
in bilingual countries the world over, all official communication: billboards,
memos, letterheads, road-signs, application forms, court forms, police
documents, health forms, driver’s licenses and hospital discharge forms are all
written in the official languages of the country in question. Failure to do so
is tantamount to a violation of the constitution, an illegal act punishable by
law in any country where there is rule of law. I have no doubt at all in my
mind that diplomats accredited to Yaoundé find our official language policy and
its implementation utterly ludicrous. More often than not, one finds on
billboards inanities such as: “Not to make dirty is better”. This
incomprehensible inscription is meant to be a translation for: “Ne pas salir
c’est bien.” If the situation were not so grave one would be laughing but the
language question in Cameroon brooks no laughter.
Public authorities, namely mayors,
governors, divisional officers, police officers and gendarmes are expected to
maintain zero tolerance in upholding Cameroon’s bilingual policy. Breaches of
official language policies ought to be punished. It should be noted that there
is a pool of translators and interpreters at the Presidency of the Republic
spending time on trivialities. Why not use them to perform this important task?
These technocrats who were educated with money collected from Cameroonian
taxpayers should be made to serve the nation by translating official documents
aimed at public consumption. Let myopia, bigotry and blind allegiance the
powers-that-be not deter them from valuing the priceless work that translators
and interpreters are capable of doing for the nation.
Personally, I couldn’t care less how much
cosmetic surgery French-speaking Cameroonians want to perform on the language
of Voltaire. As a matter of fact, psycho-sociological factors have made me
totally callous to the mastery of Voltaire’s mother tongue beyond the ability
to ask for water to drink when I am on a visit to the world of La
Francophonie.[xiii] If
I have acquired a smattering of French it is because it enables me to put an
additional loaf of bread on the dining table. What I do care very much about is
the need to do justice to every indigenous language community in Cameroon. I
care very much about my own mother tongue, Bamunka that
occupies its own spot in the linguistic landscape of Cameroon. It is the duty
of each and every Cameroonian to prevent the demise of their own indigenous
language, the more so because language abuse has become the hallmark of formal
education in Cameroon. The importance of indigenous languages has been stressed
by scholars in the field. It is noteworthy to point out the views of Nkrumah on
the role of autochtonous languages as an indispensable part of our heritage. In
his speech titled “Ghana is Born,” Nkrumah sees the use of European languages
in Africa as one of the problems compromising the freedom, equality and
independence of African countries. He thus suggested the following blueprint:
It is essential that we do consider seriously
the problem of language in Africa[…] Far more students in our universities are
studying Latin and Greek than studying the languages of Africa. An essential of
independence is that emphasis must be laid on studying the living languages of
Africa for, out of such a study will come simpler methods by which those in one
part of Africa may learn the languages in all other parts.(Quoted in Kwame
Botwe-Asamoah, 2005, p.747)
In this discourse, Nkrumah not only saw the
danger in neglecting indigenous African languages, but he also
underscored the significance of the linguistic factor in African unity, the
more so because as Ngugi (1986) points out, ”Every language has a dual makeup;
it is both a mode of communication and a bearer of culture.”(p.13) Asante
(1988) has a point when he posits that “If your God cannot speak your language,
then he is not your God.”(p.4)Years ago, I read some material that lent
credibility to Asante’s charge of linguistic abuse in postcolonial Africa. The
offensive document that I read was the C.A.P examination in Cameroon. The
following is an excerpt culled for Francis Nyamnjoh’s (1996:114) book:
Each candidat should pick by bilot a sujet.
Each sujet is mark over 40 marks. For each port, candidat shall establish the
working mothed card. Fill in the analysis car in annexe B.
Anyone in his right mind reading this except
should be wondering what on earth is going on in Cameroon. One wonders how
Anglophone learners are expected to succeed in an examination in which the
phraseology of the questions has been tinkered beyond intelligibility. The
unintelligible stuff cited above was meant to serve as an examination that
would determine the fate of thousands of Anglophone students who had spent four
years studying at technical colleges nationwide. Little wonder they fail in
drones. The good thing about this conundrum is that Anglophone parents and
teachers are not willing to allow this sort of linguistic bastardization to go
on forever. This rape of the English language speaks volumes about the
disrespect that Francophone educators and decision-makers have for
English-speaking Cameroonians. When the erstwhile Minister of National
Education, Robert Mbella Mbappe, was confronted by some irate Anglophone
parents and teachers over the tinkered nature of the aforementioned examination
and called for the need for an independent Examination Board for Anglophones,
here is the response he gave to the representatives of TAC and the SONDENGAM
Commission: “You can do whatever you like with your so-called GCE board, none
of my children studies in Cameroon.” (Op cit, 114) It is hard to believe that
these words are coming out of the mouth of a Minister of National Education,
paid with taxpayers' money. In another country, he would have been asked to
step down from his position without ceremony.
Conclusion
In this article, we have endeavored to show to
what extent the language question has fueled the flames of discontent among
English Speaking Cameroonians and engendered the ongoing fiery Ambazonian War.
It is one of the root causes of the Cameroon Anglophone Crisis. It would amount
to living in fool’s paradise to dismiss the legitimate complaints of
English-Speaking Cameroonians as the ranting of a few disgruntled individuals
as some French-speaking Cameroonians have claimed so far. When all is said and
done, Cameroonians must ask themselves the inevitable question: Is there light
at the end of the tunnel as far resolving the Anglophone Crisis is concerned? As
far as this writer is concerned, the response is in the affirmative. What needs
to be done at this juncture given that the smoldering flames of discontent have
metamorphosed into a bush-fire, is to cease acting the ostrich. Paul Biya and
his cohort must take giant steps toward addressing the Anglophone Crisis by all
means necessary. If convening a national conference would serve this purpose,
there is no reason why Cameroonians cannot be given the opportunity to sit down
and talk this problem through. Cameroonians are living in what some
perspicacious observers have termed “pre-independence nostalgia.” In other
words, post-colonial Cameroon has gotten to a point where some Cameroonians
think back wishfully about the days of colonial administration!
Nearly sixty years after gaining political
independence, it is a shame to realize that Cameroon is still tied to the apron
strings of France. By now, Cameroon should be in a position to assert itself
and conceive a framework that would lead her toward lasting peace and
prosperity.Most importantly, Cameroon needs capable leadership. Paul Biya is a
senile lame-duck president and should be overthrown pronto. The people that
govern Cameroonians today are absentee landlords with no vision at all. Under
an enlightened leadership endowed with goodwill, Cameroon should be a
terrestrial paradise.
All in all, I have argued throughout this
article that the root cause of the ongoing imbroglio in Cameroon stems from the
linguistic and cultural dichotomies that distance Anglophone Cameroonians from
their Francophone compatriots. I further contend that on account of the
Anglophone Question, Cameroon has remained an open sore on the African
continent for far too long. Cameroonians of all walks of life cannot continue
to turn a blind eye to this problematic status quo. In the words of Ngugi
(1986): “They must discover their various tongues to sing the song: ‘A people
united can never be defeated.” (3) In order to salvage Cameroon from the
brink of collapse, Cameroonians at home and in the diaspora must take a number
of realistic measures:
· Cameroonians have to get
rid of the colonial mentality and assume the posture of architects of their own
destiny. The belief that international goodwill will solve our perennial
problems is a fallacy. We must be prepared to look one another in the face and
say: look, this is where we went wrong; it is time to correct mistakes of the
past and move on toward seeking a long-lasting solution to the Anglophone
Question.
· Cameroonians must make
sure that their hard-won political independence is not a sham. To put this
differently, political independence must be backed by economic freedom. This is
the point Ngwane (2004) underscores when he wonders: “Of what use is political
freedom without economic emancipation?”(14)Ngwane’s question is not an idle
one.
· Last but not least, the
question of Ambazonian autonomy, in other words, total independence for
the Republic of Ambazonia must be on the table for discussion sooner rather
than later. Time is against Cameroonian stakeholders.
Works cited
Angelou, Maya. I know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New
York: Random House, 1986.
Botwe-Asamoah, Kwame. Kwame Nkrumah’s Politico- Cultural
Thoughts and Policies: An African-Centered
Paradigm for the African Revolution. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Cameroon. Constitution of the Republic of Cameroon.
Yaoundé: Government of Cameroon,
1984.
Confiant, et al. Eloge de la créolité. Paris: Gallimard, 1993.
Marley, Bob. Complete Lyrics of Bob Marley: Songs of
Freedom. London: Omnibus, 2001.
Nyamnjoh, Francis. The Cameroon GCE Crisis: A Test of
Anglophone Solidarity. Bamenda:
Langaa, 2008.
Orwell, George. Animal Farm. New York: Harcourt, 1946.
Wa Thiong’o,
Ngugi. Decolonizing the Mind. London: Heinemann, 1986.
[vii] Southern
Cameroons is the name given to the southern part of the territory under British
administration in West Africa. Since 1961 it has been part of the Republic
of Cameroon, where it makes up
the Northwest Region and Southwest Region. Since 1994, pressure
groups in the territory have sought independence from the Republic of Cameroon,
and the Republic of Ambazonia was declared by the Southern Cameroons
Peoples Organization (SCAPO) on 31 August 2006.
[viii] Though francophone,
the Bamileke have more in common, culturally-speaking, with English-speaking
compatriots than they do with French-speaking Cameroonians.
[ix] Common
law lawyers of Anglophone Cameroons were said to have
written an appeal letter to the government over the use of French in courtrooms
in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon. In an effort to
protect the English culture, they began a sit-down strike in all
courtrooms on October 6, 2016. It all began with a call for sit down
strike from all court actions after a meeting of Presidents of the lawyers’
associations from the Northwest and Southwest regions held on the 6th of
October 2016. The lawyers blamed the failure of government authorities to
respond to their demands and appeals. This culminated in the decision to launch
protest marches in Bamenda in the Northwest and Buea and Limbe in the
Southwest.
[xi] Poem published in the author’s poetry anthology, African
Time and Pidgin Verses, Duplico, 2001.
[xiii] La Francophonie is an international
organization of French-speaking countries and governments. Formally known as
the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) or
the International Organization of La Francophonie, the organisation comprises
fifty-five member states and governments and thirteen observers. The
prerequisite for admission is not the degree of French usage in the member
countries, but a prevalent presence of French
culture and French language in the member
country’s identity, usually stemming from France’s interaction with other
nations in its history.
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