WHAT BIYA SHOULD DO NOW

WHAT BIYA SHOULD DO NOW

Celebrations marking fifty years of Cameroon`s reunification have come and gone. Now is the time to draw the balance sheet and chart the way forward.

The balance sheet

Conferences and discussions were held for people to air their views. A lot of things were said. Buea, where the jamboree took place has been left physically more beautiful than it was prior to the celebration.

The main road arteries have been refurbished and expanded, thus easing traffic flow. Access roads have been opened up too and street lighting, reinforced. During refurbishment, economic operators were forced to demolish ramshackle structures and replace them with more befitting ones. Off licenses were removed from the university precincts as well as immediately off the road. The historic Buea Mountain Hotel was rebuilt from scratch, considering that it had floundered and collapsed to ruins previously. Parliamentarian Flats Hotel was redone and a sumptuous administrative block put up for use by Buea Council.

But what were we celebrating?

The answer is: “reunification”. Some observers and stakeholders have seized the opportunity to decry the “union” as having gone “wrong from the very beginning”. Another school of thought holds that the union “never took place”. Proponents of the “Southern Cameroons” advocate dissolution of the “marriage”. Personally, I believe that what is wrong with this option is its implementation. Who will carry it out? Where? When and how?

I am startled by the argument that to solve what has come to be known as “the Anglophone problem”, we must necessarily return to the era of the Southern Cameroons. Why? I believe that the quest for a return to that past is unrealistic, far-fetched and futile.

Why have we skipped the period between 1961 and 1972 when we were a federal Republic with two “equal” states, one of them being the Francophone state of East Cameroon and the other, the Anglophone state of West Cameroon? In West Cameroon, a lot was achieved.  There was real democracy, efficiency, accountability and respect for hierarchy. Are not those the values we are yearning for?

What Paul Biya can do

The first thing is recognize that there is an Anglophone problem. My argument is this: if from 1961 to 1972, Anglophone Cameroon was an equal partner to Francophone Cameroon, then what happened that when the United Republic was created in 1972, Anglophones were made to lose most of that sovereignty?  Their share of influence and power was reduced from 50 per cent (half) to 14.2, which was the new dispensation that now saw the former West Cameroon broken up into two separate provinces which henceforth constituted two of seven provinces in the United Republic. From then on, all seven provinces were considered as equal, even though when it came to the official language, English was and still has an equal status with French. Is that not a contradiction in terms? From then on too, the Francophone numerical majority was better placed to lord it over the Anglophone minority.

Biya can begin by inviting the SCNC for talks. He can do it tactfully by allowing the body to choose its own spokespersons from among its ranks. If this move is taken, the SCNC will have to get its act  together because the organization is divided and speaks with different voices.

Without necessarily waiting for the talks, Biya can take everyone by surprise when announcing the much awaited cabinet reshuffle. He can for once appoint Anglophones to posts which had since independence appeared “unreachable” to them. These include Defence, Finance, National Security, the National Gendarmerie, and the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic.

Right now, from the North West Region, there is only Arts and Culture Minister Ama Tutu Muna who has what one might consider a “full ministerial post”. Atanga Nji Paul is only one of a number of Ministers in Charge of Special Duties at the Presidency of the Republic, thus having no ministry of his own. The third cabinet minister from the North West is Fuh Calistus Gentry who is a Secretary of State. Although Prime Minister Philemon Yang is also from the North West, his post is beyond the scope of the present analysis. In the South West, there are  only three cabinet ministers, among whom only Ngole Ngwese, Minister for Forestry and Wildlife, has a “full ministry”. Dion Ngute is a Minister Delegate to another minister and Mengot Victor Arrey-Nkongho is one of several Ministers in Charge of Special Duties at the Presidency of the Republic. Even Agbor Tabi, who is Assistant Secretary General at the Presidency, is still an Assistant. Where then is the equity?

So to take his detractors by surprise, Biya can change all of that. The number of Anglophone ministers in government should also be increased. It is unthinkable that while the Anglophone jurisdiction has been downsized, there was a time when a single Division in the South Region (Francophone) and another in the North Region (Francophone) had at least eight members each in the government. Why the imbalance?

The president should also reexamine the choice of ambassadors, and perhaps for once, appoint an Anglophone to a post like Paris. He has been inconsistent so far by systematically appointing Francophone ministers with a limited knowledge of English to posts in Anglophone countries. Such a strategy has not served our national interests well.

The overall number of Anglophone General Managers in state corporations is comparatively low. Biya should specifically examine the case of Sonara, the National Oil Refinery, which although located in the South West Region, does not seem to be viewed favourably by the people of the Region who complain of Francophone domination and the fact that they are not really getting the fallouts of the corporation which is in their own backyard.

The cry of Anglophones is that they have been dispossessed and relegated to second place. Paul Biya is in a position to do something about it. Let him seize the opportunity.