*Insists self-determination remains a human right.
By
Che Atanji
The Anglophone Crisis,
which erupted late in 2016 when common law lawyers and Anglophone teachers’
trade unions protested against the imposition of French-speaking workers in
schools and law courts in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon in
January 2017 took an ugly twist, as the Biya government seemed determined to
contain it.
Jean-Claude Ndikum Ngolle
Cameroon’s Minister of
Territorial Administration, René Sadi,on January 17, 2017 banned the Southern
Cameroons National Council (SCNC).
The banning order read:
“Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) and the Cameroon Anglophone Civil
Society Consortium (CACSC) are declared null and void for their purpose and
activities, which are contrary to the Constitution and liable to jeopardize the
security of the state, territorial integrity, national unity and national
integration.”
The ban of the SCNC by
Cameroon government continues to draw sharp criticisms, especially from radical
Anglophone rights activists.
While the ban is said to
be forcing many local pro-Anglophone independence activists to go underground,
for fear that the Cameroon government would intensify a crack down on them,
SCNC members abroad have become more vocal in their criticisms of the Biya
regime for its alleged marginalization and discrimination of the minority
English speakers in the country.
Jean-Claude Ndikum Ngolle
is a staunch SCNC activist but now living abroad (Canada).
In an online reaction to the SCNC ban, Ndikum Ngolle
insisted that self-determination is a human right, wondering the Biya regime,
which prides itself as “advanced democracy”keeps violating minority English
speakers’ right to self-determination.
An angry Ndikum Ngolle,
who was noted for propagating the SCNC doctrine in local communities in Buea while
still in Cameroon, cited Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR), which says:
”All peoples have the
right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine
their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural
development.”
Ndikum Ngolle, whose parents were also
members of the SCNC, argued that the creation of the SCNC in i994 was to ensure
the restoration of the independence of Southern Cameroons-the former British
colony, today the Southwest and Northwest regions of Cameroon.
“Our motto is: The Force
of argument and not the argument of Force”, he reiterated, condemning
Government’s use of military force to resolve a problem, which should otherwise
be politically and peacefully settled on the table.
“The ban [will] not
disturb our campaign in any way. We took the Cameroon Government to the African
Commission on Human and Peoples Rights in Banju, the Gambia and even without
taking all the points we submitted into consideration, the Commission still
concluded in 2009 that we are a people distinct from the people of La
Republique du Cameroon…
“The SCNC has taken the
Cameroon Government to various other international bodies and Like the UNHRC
and won ,clearly proving the case of our Independence”.
He argued, “With all our
diplomatic progress, the campaign for the restoration of our independence cannot be stopped by a ban on the SCNC”.
The SCNC and the Cameroon
Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC) were banned because both pressure
groups reportedly
coordinated civil disobedience and anti- government protests, after the Biya
regime appeared hesitant to satisfactorily meet demands of striking Common law
advocates and Anglophone teachers.
CACSC President Barrister
Felix Agbor Nkongho and his secretary Dr.Neba Fontem were immediately arrested
after the ban of the pressure groups ;and four days later was the arrest of
Cameroon Supreme Court’s Deputy Attorney-General, Ayah Paul Abine, an Anglophone perceived by
the Biya regime to be fuelling the
crisis with his outspokenness on Anglophone marginalization.
It should be noted that since the creation of
SCNC, its members and sympathizers have been raided, arrested, prosecuted and
imprisoned for propagating its ideals; many others have fled the country.
The Biya Government labels
the SCNC an illegal group whose clear
intention to divide a “one and indivisible Cameroon.”
Many alleged SCNC devotees are in detention
awaiting trial.
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