Imperialistic Politics in Cameroun: Resistance and the Inception of the Restoration of the Statehood of Southern Cameroons: Resistance and the Inception of the Restoration of the Statehood of Southern Cameroons

Chapter One - Reign of Terror

5 Chapter One Reign of Terror French Cameroun gained independence on 1 January 1960 under Ahmadou Ahidjo, born in 1922 in Garoua, a town in the Muslim-dominated northern zone of French Cameroun. A man of marginal education, Ahidjo was by nature reserved and secretive, stern and inscrutable. “Sous des apparences froides, distantes, indifférentes, réfrigérantes même parfois, Ahidjo … était très peu démonstratif et donnait une fausse image de lui.”1 His highest educational attainment was ‘l’école primaire supérieure’ (higher primary school). After completing it he worked for a short while as a post office clerk.2 Being a practising Muslim he made the pilgrimage to Mecca, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, so earning the title Alhaji. But his Qu’ranic proficiency was somewhat mediocre.3 He neither spoke nor understood Arabic and always felt embarrassment at not being able to communicate with Arab leaders in Arabic.4 He also did not speak or understand English. That was probably out of snobbery. He tended, like most of his countrymen, to look down on citizens of the Southern British Cammeroons, considering them persons of a lesser order. Ahidjo died in exile5 in Dakar, Senegal, on 30 November 1989. He was 67. He took with him the secret of his paternal ancestry.6 However, according to some accounts he was of Nigerian origin because his father, it is said, was a Nigerian.7 “Late President Ahmadou Ahidjo of Cameroun was a Fulani man whose father was originally from Kano in Nigeria. His mother was from Garoua in Cameroun. In fact Ahidjo grew up around Yola and Mubi in Nigeria and was a playmate of Senator Iya Abubakar. His former District 1 Gaillard, Ph., Ahmadou Ahidjo. Patriote et Despote, Batisseur de l’Etat Camerounais, Jeunes Afrique Livres, Paris, 1994, p. 12. 2 Rensburg van, A.P.J., ‘Ahmadou Ahidjo: From Postal Clerk to President’, in Contemporary Leaders of Africa, HAUM, Cape Town, 1975, p. 33. 3 Gaillard, op. cit., p. 13. 4 Ibid 5 A remarkable pattern is emerging in the way in which incumbent leaders in Cameroun Republic treat the remains of deceased principal political leaders of that country. The French killed Um Nyobe in the Bassa forest. André Marie Mbida and his successor, Ahmadou Ahidjo, concealed the whereabouts of his grave, and it remains a mystery, assuming he was not disposed of in the same way the Belgians disposed of Lumumba (chopped into bits and dissoloved in acid). The French assassinated Félix Moumié in Geneva. Ahidjo refused his corpse to be brought back to Cameroun for burial. Moumié’s body still lies mouldering in a Conakry cemetary. Ahidjo died in exile. Biya refused his body to be repatriated to Cameroun for burial. Ahidjo’s body still lies mouldering in a Dakar cemetary. What fate shall befall Biya’s body when Biya dies tomorrow? 6 “Enfant sans père, et dont le seul oncle s’était établi au Nigéria, il avait été élevé par sa mère.” See Gaillard, op. cit. p.13. 7 Ibid; Nowa Omoigui, ‘The Bakassi Story , 1950-1975,’ http://www.omoigui.com/files/the_bakassi_story 6 Head in Nigeria, Ambassador Malabu, was made Ambassador to Cameroun to cement the relationship. It is said that every time late Alhaji Ahidjo saw late Alhaji Malabu he would genuflect. Thus, Nigeria gained and sustained Cameroun’s support during the civil war, not by territorial concession as have been widely and wrongly reported, but by manipulating primordial links between Ahidjo and Northern Nigeria.”8 The evidence offered in support of the assertion that Ahidjo was of Nigerian extraction is the following: Ahidjo’s mother though from Garoua spent much of her time in Kano, Nigeria; Ahidjo was brought up by a Nigerian, a Yoruba man named Alhadji Badamassi, who at the time lived in Garoua9; Ahidjo supported the Northern-Region-dominated Nigerian Federal Government during the Nigerian civil war. But another account has it that Ahidjo’s father was in fact a Malian from the Malian town of Mopti in the Massina region of that country. “ Les ‘impératifs moraux et matériels’ évoqués [dans le préambule de la convention Cameroun-Mali du 6 mai 1964] ne nous renvoient vers aucun repère exact. A moins qu’il s’agisse des origines de l’ancien chef d’Etat camerounais Ahmadou Ahidjo qui, comme nous l’avons découvert à travers nos recherches, seraient maliennes. Il nous revient en effet que l...