Dear President Biya,
In your end of year 2016 speech, you said “We should remain open to constructive ideas, to the exclusion, however, of those that would affect the form of our State.” Mr. President, we are sorry to tell you that you have it all wrong: the right form of the state of Cameroon is a Federation – not the Republic of Cameroon.
Mr. President, Cameroonians know their history and want to take this opportunity to remind you of the facts – and to educate all fellow Cameroonians – from Limbe to Batouri, from Kousseri to Lolodorf – that the true form of Cameroon is a Federation and not the sham of a ‘decentralized government’ that we have today. Mr. President, if you say the form of Cameroon is not a Federation, you are implicit in President Ahidjo’s 1972 Coup D’Etat on Southern Cameroons and West Cameroon. Read on…
On February 11, 1961, the independent people of Southern Cameroons voted (in a UN-sanctioned referendum) to join La Republique du Cameroun in a Federation.
In July of 1961, a constitutional conference was held in Foumban between La Republique du Cameroun, led by President Ahidjo , and the leaders of Southern Cameroons led by John Ngu Foncha. This was supposed to be the first of several conferences to agree on the form of the Federation. The leaders of Southern Cameroons were not fooled in Foumban: they made provisional concessions with the understanding that future meetings would iron out points of contention. Unfortunately, no subsequent meetings equal to the Foumban conference was held and Ahidjo forced his way in a meeting in August 1961 in Yaounde to finalize the constitution of the Federal Republic of Cameroon / La Republique Federale du Cameroun, which was to take effect on October 1, 1961. However, on September 1, 1961, President Ahidjo, then still president of only La Republique du Cameroun, single-handedly signed the new Federal Constitution?!
- The Southern Cameroons House of Assembly in Buea did not review and approve the final version of the Federal Constitution
- John Ngu Foncha, Premier of Southern Cameroons never signed the Federal Constitution
Mr. President, how then could the 1961 Federal Constitution been legal when both parties of the Union did not reasonably review and jointly approve it?
Mr. President, we now know that President Ahidjo’s long-term agenda – and that of the French Govenment of French President Pompidou – was to assimilate West Cameroon into La Republique du Cameroun. You’re well aware of this, but let’s review again what really happened in 1972. President Ahidjo traveled to Paris and returned to Yaounde on May 5, 1972 with printed copies of the new constitution of a ‘United Republic of Cameroon‘ presumably written in Paris under the direction of Maurice Duverger and Jaques Rousseau, French ‘technical advisers’ to President Ahidjo. One thing is very clear – it was not authored or deliberated by nor was it the brainchild of the Federal Assembly or the West of East Houses of Assemblies of the then Federal Republic of Cameroon. Since when does a President write a constitution for the country?!
Do you approve … the draft constitution submitted to the People of Cameroon by the President of the Federal Republic of Cameroon…?
Two days later, on May 7, 1972, Ahidjo called an extraordinary session of the Federal Assembly in Yaounde in which he laid out his vision of a United Republic of Cameroon, citing cost as the main driver of dismantling the Federal Govenment in favor of unitary government. The new draft constitution was in direct violation of Article 47 of the 1961 Federal Constitution that forbade dissolution of the union with approvals by majorities in the West and East Houses of Assemblies. Ahidjo announced the referendum on the new constitution for May 20, 1972, giving those who were lucky to get a copy, 13 days to review the constitution. Ahidjo’s May 7, 1972 speech in the Federal Assembly in Yaounde forever silenced and dissolved the House of Assemblies of West and East Cameroon, neither of which ever met again as a ‘Federation’ to debate or review and approve the new constitution.
Mr. President, you know all too well what happened thereafter. The referendum was a sham – it had only 1 option: “Oui or Yes”. There was no “No” vote.
By midday on May 20, 1972, President Ahidjo was already calling the referendum a victory. Ahidjo unilaterally signed the new constitution into law on June 2, 1972 (Decree 72-270), a constitution imposed on Cameroon by France, and one that was
- not written or reviewed by the Federal Assembly
- not approved or signed by either the East or West Houses of Assemblies
- not signed by the Prime Minister of the Federated States of West and East Cameroon
Dropping off ‘United’ in the official name of the country in 1984 was a just formality to make us forget our history, similar to the useless tactic of renaming ‘provinces’ to ‘regions’.
Mr. President, even if La Republique du Cameroun were legal, its legality does not right the injustices and marginalization of the people of the NW & SW. In the unlikely and regrettable chance that you share the point of view that we must solve our problems strictly within today’s legal contexts – the ‘one and indivisible Cameroon’ and our current laws and constitution – may we remind you, Mr. President, that
- slavery was once legal
- the holocaust was once legal
- that apartheid was once legal.
Mr. President, LEGALITY IS A MATTER OF POWER, NOT JUSTICE. Asking for a federation today may not be legal, but the people of the NW & SW are doing so because it is the only form of government that guarantees freedoms for their way of life, a future for their children, safeguards for their legal and educational systems, protections for their African & Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage and most importantly, assures their long-term economic survival in the Cameroon of tomorrow. Ad-hoc committees do not create legislation.
Mr. President, we urge you to do what is right and call for a constitutional conference and that will return Cameroon to a federal system of government.
Your people
Formerly 'Lettres à Etoudi' 