Question Concerning the Nationality of the People of Ambazonia: A Critical Inquiry

The “Nera Ten” standing trial in a military tribunal in Yaoundé recently flagged the question of nationality when they told the tribunal that the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) is their country of nationality. They thereby rejected the supposition that they have Cameroun nationality. The nationality of Ambazonians is a question that has so far eluded scholarly inquiry—notwithstanding the impressive scholarship on their distinct and separate identity, their polymorphous condition, and the ever-fluctuating political status of their country. In critically examining the nationality question, I hypothesize that the uncritical assumption that Ambazonians have Cameroun nationality is probably unin-formed. I argue that the nationality in question is obfuscated by Cameroun’s perverse polysemous and instrumentalist use of the designation “Cameroon.” I conclude that pending the actualization of the sovereign state of Ambazonia proclaimed on 1 October 2017, Ambazonians could well qualify for the time being as de facto stateless persons. Their presumed Cameroun nationality can thus be reckoned as a nationality ex necessitate juris and a temporary technical nationality submitted in order to avoid the condition of precariousness and hardship that attaches to statelessness.