Incisive Journalism in Cameroon: The Best of ��Cameroon Report�� (1978 � 1986)

35. Cameroon Report 06/10/85: The First October Story

123 35 Cameroon Report 06/10/85: The First October Story Introduction: After about twelve years of silence, there was renewed talk of 1st October this year. It however ended at the level of news talks with no festivities. As anchorman for Cameroon Report, this is what EBSSIY NGUM had to say on the occasion: The story being told in Cameroon today started in 1884 at the Berlin conference when more than two hundred ethnic groups were carved out as a colonial parcel and given to Germany. Thirty-five years later, another meeting which did not seek our opinion split Cameroon into two so as to satisfy the imperial interests of France and Britain. This separation was in force for forty years and accounts for the fact that Cameroon today combines two foreign cultures which are legacies of the colonial past. Assimilation on the one hand and indirect rule on the other, have had varying impacts on the affected people. The plurality of our cultural settings and the desire for unity, have forced Cameroonians to cling to their colonial legacies as the only basis for a more accommodating frame of reference. This wider frame has as its only vehicle of expression, English and French –an indication that language is more powerful than a name. What is in a name? We may equally conclude that colonial rule precipitated the creation of nation-states from the multitude of nationalities, tribes, and ethnic groups. Colonial masters 124 succeeded because they used foreign languages so as to better dominate and uniformise their relations within their areas of jurisdiction. The evolution, however, has been steady since the great re-union of 1st October, 1961. It was not only a re-union of people, but that of constitutions which recognized the historical past of each main cultural community. We saw the writing on the wall on 1st September 1966 when the various political parties of the two communities gave up their identities. This was certainly a sign of good-will, yet naive. It turned out that a dictatorship had been ushered in on a gold platter. The no-return move came on May 20th 1972 with the unification of constitutions. The Federal Republic of Cameroon became a United Republic with a clear intention to ignore the historical past of the two main communities though we still have to know whether that intention was concretised. It also reduced both judicial independence and individual freedoms. The United Republic might have governed Cameroon badly for twelve years but it defended itself well because it lasted and died in peace and in one piece. General DE GAULLE said that “what separates the men from the boys in politics is that the boys want high offices in order to be somebody, the men want high office in order to do something”. On 6th November 1982, on taking office as second President of the United Republic, PAUL BIYA had a programme known as the New Deal. He might have wanted to distinguish himself from the boys in politics. The intention then was to keep only men in politics so that they can do something to bring about concrete progress, even in institutions. 125 Many thought it was an end to conservatism, abuse of justice, misuse of power, fraud, tribalism and rule by one man surrounded by his worshippers. It sounded like the dawn of a new era with much said on freedom of everything except crime as known in common law. Hopes were awakened as people recalled the pre-1966 days when there was competition for public office with everybody given the chance. People have since looked forward to new electoral laws that respect the electorate. However, the Republic too is defending itself well as the storms either stress unity to ignore diversity, or diversity to ignore unity. The message remains that there is unity in diversity. Twenty-four years after, Cameroon remains united- an indication that even if original detail was ignored, the global concept of re-unification had a good base because of sacrificial good-will on the part of some participants at the Foumban constitutional conference in 1961. Cameroon Report however still sees that we are constitutionally united, institutionally in unity, culturally in diversity, linguistically talking bilingualism, socially in the seas, politically under great expectations and everybody still has to be equal before the law as a war against high office crimes. Finally, good government turns cultural...