IS THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS ISSUE MYTH OR REALITY?

THE REPUBLIC OF THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS: MYTH OR REALITY?

By TIKUM MBAH AZONGA

(A personal viewpoint)

A lot has been said about this problem. Some have even claimed to have the unction of the United Nations. Which United Nations? The UN is not in the business of breaking up countries. As things stand, the UN recognizes Cameroon as one country with one capital, Yaounde and one president, Paul Biya. That has nothing to do with whether we like it or approve it.

Power is not handed on a platter of gold. It is fought for. So if proponents of the Southern Cameroonians want independence, they must fight for it. Even so, they are unlikely to win such a war because they are hemmed in partly by Nigeria which enjoys very strong relations with France. So Paris will not sacrifice mighty Nigeria for our tiny territory. Nigeria has made French its second official language. Instead of wanting to break away, Cameroonian graduates can approach Nigeria with a view to teaching French there. Trade figures in one year in the 1980s showed that France sold and bought more goods from Nigeria than any other country in Sub Saharan Africa, including the francophone countries. Another survey around the same period showed that Nigeria had a higher number of students in French universities that the traditional French former colonies. Furthermore, Nigeria can not get engaged in a Cameroonian civil war because it has not yet recovered from the Nigerian-Biafran war which it bitterly regrets to this day.

There is no point in floating a flag called the Southern Cameroons flag. Where is it pitched? Where is the territory`s national capital? Who is its president? Who are its foreign ambassadors abroad and who are the foreign diplomats accredited to it? If proponents of the Southern Cameroons are not careful, in the end they will realize that they have made graver tactical errors than those for which we blame the architects of the Southern Cameroons.

The only way forward is a fight. But there will be no such thing because the so-called Southern Cameroons leaders are not ready for it and might not even win it. Otto Von Bismarck, the former Iron Chancellor of Germany once said "the great questions of the day shall be decided not by speech and resolutions but by blood and iron". Another problem is that supporters of the Southern Cameroon`s issue are too erratic and phlegmatic. They cannot stand criticism. Thus, they have closed the debate prematurely and dictatorially.

Secession is utopia and a myth. That is my view. In any case, I am not a child of the Southern Cameroons era. I belong to the later day state of West Cameroon. That`s the one can talk about.

Let’s be realistic. After all, what is so bad about Cameroon that we can`t correct if were put our act together and exercised some patience. Instead, we want to follow the path of least resistance; the primrose path. We want to simply go with the flow. We are abdicating and chickening out. Why? This country belongs to all of us and not just one man. That`s why the late statesman Solomon Tandeng Muna once said: “People come and go but the nation remains.”

THE END