Southern Cameroons

That there exists an Anglophone Problem in Cameroon demands no further explanations, but areas in which this marginalisation is practised abound.

Amid the general condemnation of neglect and maltreatment meted on citizens of Northwest and Southwest extraction through Government circles, The Post, revisits other decades-long aspects of maltreatment that have kept the common Anglophone person in trauma.

Across the Northwest and Southwest, daily proceedings in most establishments for long have taken a French style of operation.

Often times, employees of French extraction respond more to persons who identify with the French language than others who struggle to make their point in English.

Scenarios abound at the level of Commercial Banks, Railway Stations, Bus Stations, brewery companies, National Social Insurance, telecommunication companies, money transfer agencies, hospitals, laundry services, police stations and other areas of daily activities.

It is common knowledge that persons on retirement face a lot of language problems following up documents at the level of insurance companies.

First, a handful of employees are Francophones. This puts an average Anglophone retiree in a disadvantaged position. In an attempt to get clarification on forms and other documents, elderly persons try for long and several times just to make meaning of the French written on the forms.

At times, some of these persons have to spend hours, either waiting for an Anglophone youth or employee who speaks or understands French to bail them out of the trauma.

The story is told of an elderly man who recently exploded in anger after such conduct at the Social Insurance Fund in Mile 17 Buea.

In the domain of rail transport, tickets dished to passengers carry messages completely in French. Sign posts along rail lines are in French on Anglophone soil without any English version.

This is the situation at the Kumba-Banga rail axis. Tickets here are designed uniquely in French but a majority of those who use this axis are English-speaking.

Similar traumatising experiences abound in the road transport sector.

Road signs and other directions are completely in French in villages across most of Anglophone Cameroon where major road works take place.

At the level of commercial banks, the general conduct has been that of favouritism. It is common place for a Francophone employee to attend to a French-speaking customer, even if such a person came after an Anglophone.

In most of these commercial banks, adverts, messages and other announcements are provocatively dished out in French.

Quarrels usually spark over such issues but there is no one they can report to. Same obtains in money transfer agencies.

Sometimes, when there is congestion, especially in student residential neighbourhoods like Molyko, Francophone employees tend to treat with students who speak French first.

Mobile telephone companies share in the process. Their messages to customers are predominantly in one Language, mostly French.

Brewery companies have their computerised receipts crafted in French only. Yet they apply the same format in English-speaking Cameroon.

The same language marginalisation exists at police stations and laundry houses.

Pius Itoe, a political observer, told The Post that for such aching trends to be reversed, Government must take a firm stance on the neglect of any of the country‘s official languages.

Itoe said investors and other companies must be made to respect policies

Cameroonpostnewsline

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Rita Akana

20.Jan.2017

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The population of the nation capital, Yaoundé has refused to remain indifferent to what is happing in the Anglophone Regions of the North West and South West. The debate of problems posed by Anglophones through Teachers Trade Unions and Common Law Lawyers have taken central stage in private audio visual media organs, offices, schools, taxis, transport vehicles, streets and bars with people expressing mixed feeling.
Listening to a private radio station in Yaoundé based at the Essos neighbourhood, Magic FM 100.1 last week in its interactive call in programme “Magic Attitude” anchored by its Chief of Station, Jules Elobo, one could hear some listeners acknowledging and supporting the Anglophone course as genuine while others simply claimed that Anglophones just like Francophones also have problems.

Another spot that produces heated debate on the Anglophone problem has been newsstands scattered all over Yaoundé where readers on daily basis analyze headlines of newspaper. Some newspapers vendors in the nation capital confided in The SUN that ever since the strike began, Anglophone newspapers are being given a lot of consideration as readers want to get the latest happenings in the North West and South West Regions.

As the deadlock between the government and the Anglophone Consortium persists, some Francophones have objectively been admiring Anglophones for the courage to stand up for their rights unlike some of them who prefer to grumble in silence.
From the reactions and counter-reactions observed, keen observers are asking the government to be proactive and tactful in solving the Anglophone problem for fear it may contaminate the Francophone regions of the country.

The Sun

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Rita Akana

20.Jan.2017

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Barrister Bobga Harmony is President of the North West Lawyers Association, NOWELA. He is one of the Lawyers who articulates very well the grievances of the Cameroon Common Law Lawyers and has been given the name 'General' in the Cameroon Common Law Lawyers Conference. According to him only the restoration of Southern Cameroon, can solve the grievances of West Cameroon. He spoke to THE SUN’s Daniela Neba Ngum at the sidelines of the Cameroon Common Law Lawyers Conference in Kumba

What brought Lawyers to Kumba at this period when Common Law Lawyers have been on Strike for four months?
We have come here to validate the creation of a Cameroon Common Law Bar. We have set up a bureau for this Bar, in order for it to go operational and be a platform for canvassing the issues that confront the lawyers, in collaboration with the consortium that regroups not just lawyers but people of other trades in life. And, together we are going to be fighting both from a professional angle and a general angle, to ensure that the restoration of the cherished values of the Southern Cameroonian is secured. We as gentlemen, we do intend to remain open to dialogue but we are not going to sacrifice one inch of our position because we have had endorsement from the community. This has put us in a position of leadership for the entire Southern Cameroon community. We are committed to delivering and with God on our side we are sure to deliver.

What is your impression on the presence of Minister Garga Haman?
Let me say the lawyers did not come here to have an open meeting; they came here to have a purely professional meeting. On my own personal account and I believe it is the view of many lawyers as well, Mr. Garga as an individual we have no problem with him. However, the fact that the President of the Republic can meet the former minister in a cocktail at the Unity Palace and tell him to come see us without any written mandate, is reinforcing the insults on Southern Cameroonians. It goes to show that we are just some disposable tissue that he can get just any one to come and talk to us anytime. It also despises and minimizes the Prime Minister, Head of Government and who had been mandated, and actually came out with a Prime Ministerial order, to set up an adhoc committee commission. This transaction between the President of the Republic and the former minister is gross disrespect on Southern Cameroonians, whether we look it from the perspective of the Prime Minister or us the lawyers. We assure you, God is in control. I believe that all these errors that Mr. Biya is making are ordained from heaven and we embrace it and pray that more errors must be made, to prove to the world that they do not take us seriously so the world should because we are acting on the foundation of truth.

What are some of the values which you think the Southern Cameroonians will not sacrifice?
It is not me thinking all Cameroonians want that the Common Law System be restored. When I talk about the system; our courts should be manned and run by the Magistrate who are trained in the Common Law; the lawyers of the Common Law should not just belong in a Common Law Bar and lose their identity like a cube of sugar in a bucket of water, which we have turned around and say that there has been proper respect and recognition of the Southern Cameroonian. We believe that we are really bending over to negotiate for a federal foundation for our co-existence and this is even a middle course because if we apply legality, it is the question of restoring the independent statehood of Southern Cameroon. That is, by bringing the British government and the government of La Republic du Cameroun as people who perpetuated a continuous trespass on the territory of the State of Southern Cameroon. Under UN resolution 1608…the territory of Southern Cameroon was handed to Britain to build up into an independent nation and the British Ambassador to newly independent Cameroon, without clearance from the West Cameroon House of Assembly handed over on September 30, 1961, the sovereignty of Southern Cameroon to the President La Republic du Cameroun Late Amadou Adhijo. On the 1st of October, 1961, when we were all saying we are independent, we did not have any sovereignty to back our claim to independence; we had already been traded as slaves.

Where will the Common Law Bar be affiliated to?
As a transitional measure we are ascertained ourselves within the status quo and because we are also perusing the Federation Option which if they reject, we will fall back to the restoration of our independent statehood. At that time, there will be an enabling law on legal practice, which will be the basis of the Common Law Bar. There is something that happens with legality, when you acquire legitimacy that legitimacy readily transforms into legality. Hence, if you are working on the truth and we are operating on the truth of the law constitutionally and we have put a matter in the constitutional counsel, that they should show us the Act of Union. In the absence of that Act of Union, we are legal and legitimate because our population has supported us and saying we are right to have researched and brought forth the truth.

The Sun

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Rita Akana

20.Jan.2017

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Tapang Ivo

18.Jan.2017

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