The present stalemate in the Southern Cameroons (Former West Cameroon) began in October 2016 with the Common Law Lawyers Association’s¹(MELA, FAKLA, MALA AND NOWELA)strike and followed by the Anglophone Teachers Trade Unions (SYNES, TAC, CATTU, PEATTU, CEWOTU, and BATTUC) strike in November amid serious and numerous grievances underlying a political volcano.

The Francophone state-‘La République du Cameroun’ had her independence on January 1, 1960 and at the time Southern Cameroons as part of the British Cameroons²was a trust territory administered by Britain under Nigeria. And on October I, 1961 the Southern Cameroons gained independence through a plebiscite³ of February 11, 1961.

The present agitations is resistance to 21^st century slavery and neo-colonialism administered by the repressive government of ‘La République du Cameroun’ on the Anglophone regions of North West and South West commonly referred to as the Anglophone problem which has come after 45 years or 56 years of frustration of our people. The Anglophone problem is deciphered as the LOSS OF POLITICAL POWER BY THE ANGLOPHONE⁴.The Francophone has produced two presidents in since 1960 as against none for us.

Francophone nationalism has been exercised by confiscating power and denying the Anglophone political rights and freedoms (state terrorism-police and gendarme brutality-rape, murder, kidnap or abductions, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment without trial, cut of internet, no freedom of speech and communication and other ills you can think of). And the Anglophone nationalism can be seen exhibited in pluralist democracy⁵.

I urge Cameroon Concord team of investigators to paint a true story of this broken promise of bad faith perpetrated by the Francophone and their dictatorship government, especially now with the availability of the declassified files of the Southern Cameroons’ independence at the UN library in New York.

[1]Notes

[1]Cameroon as a bilingual state has a Bi-Jural System- the other is Civil Law which is French Law for Francophones;

²The British Cameroons included Southern and Northern Cameroons that were trust territories of the United Nations administered by Britain under Nigeria;

³Plebiscite-A referendum administered by the UN on February 11, 1961 on the British Cameroons where the Southern Cameroons voted to join ‘La République du Cameroun’ and the Northern Cameroons voted to join the Federal Republic of Nigeria;

⁴Instances of loss of power-1961:Federal Republic of Cameroon- A federal system of 2-states in which Southern Cameroons became West Cameroon and ‘La République du Cameroun’ became 'Cameroun du L’Estwithout a union treaty; 1972: United Republic of Cameroon-A false referendum where the minority Anglophones and the majority Francophones were consulted on whether they shall continue to live together as a united republic with the answers ‘YES’ or ‘OUI’ instead of the minority Anglophones as was the case in 1961; 1984-A return to ‘La République Du Cameroon’ by a Presidential decree (a name Francophone Cameroun had on independence on January 1, 1960);

⁵Pluralist democracy-democracy of interest or pressure groups-associations, syndicates and unions, etc.;