The Reunification Debate in British Southern Cameroons: The Role of French Cameroon Immigrants

This book is a succinct account of the role immigrants from French Cameroon played in the Reunification politics in the Southern Cameroons. The study reveals that these ìstrangersî organised themselves in Pressure Groups in order to fight for equal opportunities with the indigenes and when such opportunities were not coming, they initiated the Reunification Idea, propagated it and converted many reluctant Southern Cameroonians. They militated in pro-reunification political parties such as the KNC, KNDP, UPC and OK and successfully shifted the reunification idea from the periphery to the centre of Southern Cameroons decolonisation politics. The immigrants convinced the UN through petitions and reunification which was the most unpopular option for independence became one of the two alternatives at the 1961 plebiscite. They and the reluctant KNDP campaigned and voted for it. The Reunification of Cameroon was therefore the handiwork of French Cameroon immigrants.