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79 10  Constructional Acrobats & the Anglophone Problem n Part One of Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift presents the politicians of his fictitious state of Liliput as expert rope dancers and acrobats. Between 1993 and 1996, Biya proved himself an expert in that art after announcing the Grand Débat. While the public was mobilizing to participate in this grand constitutional forum, the regime played the chameleon again. It announced that what was going to take place was a ‘Large Debate’ and not ‘Grand Débat’. This meant that instead of a multitude attending, only a selected few would attend in person, while the rest participated by phone, fax and written contributions. The regime was still haunted by the fear that if it permitted any massive gathering on constitutional matters, the opposition would convert it into a sovereign national conference. Ahead of the constitutional debate earmarked for 1994, a committee to draft a new constitution for the country was appointed at the head of which Biya placed the controversial Joseph Owona, considered by many, but more by himself, as the country’s leading expert in field. In SDF circles, however, he was held in little regard by the majority, which judged him not by his legal professionalism but by his morals, which were anything but enviable. Most of those who had attended the University of Yaoundé while he was a lecturer in the Faculty of Law recalled how a woman stormed the lecture hall while he was teaching and gripped him by the throat for making her pregnant and then abandoning her. The desperate woman is said to have been found dead a few weeks later in very cloudy circumstances, causing many to suspect that Owona had a hand in her death. Owona also had an unenviable reputation as one who believed in the use of the fist rather than the tongue to win arguments, despite being a trained lawyer. Stories were peddled about how he engaged in fisticuffs with Aso’o Emana, one of Biya’s generals. He was later reported to have invited Ndzana Seme, a fellow Beti and publisher of Le Front Independent, a newspaper highly critical of the Biya regime. Ndzana exchanged blows with him because of the critical stand of the journalist. Ndana Seme was I 80 expected to ‘toe the line’ since he was Beti and, therefore, of the ruling clan. Butr the journalist was determined to act according to his conscience. The journalist was later sent to jail for publishing details of a private conversation in which Owona confided in him that Biya would be president for 29 years, thus keeping power much longer than Ahidjo. Even from the viewpoint of constitutional drafting, Owona was seen as no model. He was alleged to have drafted the constitution that transformed Jean Bedel Bokassa, a former president of Central Africa, into an emperor and, logically, thus precipitating his overthrow. He was thus suspected of also planning to transform Biya into a power monster. All these stories fell on Biya’s ears like dew drops on a lion’s mane. His mind was already made up and he thus was no longer at the mercy of critical analysis. Politicians and Nationalists Anglophones who were generally suspicious of the ‘Grand Débat’ suddenly became interested after four of their legal experts were appointed to the constitutional drafting committee muted the idea of a federal constitution and proposed an Anglophone conference to debate the matter. It emerged that the four Wise Men, Carson Anyangwe, Simon the Munzu, Ekontang Elad and Benjamin Itoe, had actually drafted the constitution. The idea of such a conference was received with unprecedented enthusiasm by Anglophone nationalists. Most of them, as earlier indicated, thought the treatment given Fru Ndi and fellow Northwesterners confirmed the status of Anglophones as second-class citizens. The conference was scheduled to be held in Buea on April. (Buea is the capital of the former West Cameroon [Southern Cameroons] and administrative headquarters of the Southwest Province of Cameroon.) News of the planned conference sent shock waves across Cameroon. In the Francophone part of the country, especially in Yaoundé, the story was not that Anglophones were planning to secede but that they had actually broken away. The Biya regime was the most frightened. That was why everything humanly possible was done to ensure the meeting was never held in a public place, especially the spacious Buea town hall. Denying Anglophones the right to meet even on their own territory fuelled public interest in...

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