By Etta Cecilia Nyangalo*
What
is today known as the Anglophone Crisis is the persistent protest by the two
English-speaking regions of Cameroon against perceived injustices meted on them,
for decades, by the majority Francophone-led governments.
Anglophones
have been bitterly complaining that their way of life-modeled after the English
Culture, is being “Frenchified” against the spirit of reunification, which was
supposed to be equality of status for both.
Cameroon,
with a population of about 24 million people, is a bilingual and bi-jural country,
following a UN-led plebiscite of February 11, 1961 at which British Southern
Cameroonians voted overwhelmingly to reunite with La Republique du Cameroun,
which had on January 1, 1960 gained its independence from France.
Thus,
on October 1, 1961, Southern Cameroons gained independence by joining La
Republique du Cameroun, to form a federation-called the Federal Republic of Cameroon;
then it moved to United Republic of Cameroon in 1972 and in 1984 reverted to
the Republic of Cameroon(La Republique du Cameroun, which name French Cameroon
was called at its independence).
Indeed,
the current Anglophone crisis simply started in October 2016 with Common Law
lawyers’ peaceful demonstrations and later followed by Anglophone teachers’
sit-in strike in November of same year.
But
today the crisis has now escalated into an armed conflict between the state of Cameroon
and Anglophone separatists.
Already,
hundreds of people(both civilians and soldiers have lost their lives as a
result of the fighting, hundreds have been imprisoned awaiting trial, and about
forty thousands fled to Nigeria seeking aslylum. According to the UN, at least
160 thousand people are internally displaced (IDPs)
Many
pundits are of the opinion that the crisis would have been averted had
Government quickly addressed the lawyers’ and teachers’ grievances instead
of sending troops to confront the peaceful
demonstrations in the streets of Buea and Bamenda, which resulted in the deaths
of several persons.
According
to Maximilienne Ngu Mbe, director of REDHAC,a coalition of human rights
defenders across Central Africa, the protests started peacefully but turned
violent when the state responded with force.
Anglophones,
who make up about 20% of Cameroon's 23- million population, have for long felt grossly
marginalized by the Francophone-dominated government in the socio-cultural,
political and economic domains.
On October 1, 2017, when Julius Ayuk Tabe,
Interim President of the putative Federal Republic of Ambazonia, declared the
independence of Anglophones, and peaceful demonstrations across Anglophone regions
saluted it, tens of demonstrators were shot dead by Cameroon’s security forces
and many others badly injured as Government described them as terrorists, thus radicalizing
the struggle for the independence of Anglophones.
Dire Consequences of the Crisis
The
about two-year crisis characterized by civil disobedience, school boycott,
ghost towns, threats to lives,kidnappings and violence has not only led to the
loss of hundreds of lives and property, but also has grounded economic activities
in the two speaking regions; prices of goods and services are hiking; movement
of people is greatly restricted because of threats from separatist fighters,
administrative orders, fear of stray bullets or fear of
the unknown.
With school
dropout and boycott, it is certain that literacy rate will be negatively affected;
Criminals have taken advantage of the crisis to perpetrate other crimes such as
theft and rape.
Stressing the need for genuine dialogue to
resolve the Anglophone crisis, Mr.Arrey-Manyi,a former vice-principal of GBHS
Mutengene, thought “it is good when people disagree to agree for the sake of
peace.”
According
to Barrister Felix Agbor Nkongho, leader of the now banned Cameroon Anglophone
Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), which coordinated the mass protests against
the Biya Regime, “the Anglophone crisis seems the biggest time bomb in Cameroon...if
it is not addressed, it will break the country”
Not
only rights organizations fear the next African civil war could be in Cameroon.
Cameroonians
especially Anglophones are now living in fear of the unknown as the future
looks bleak.
* Etta Cecilia Nyangalo is a University
of Buea Journalism intern
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