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283  Chapter Twenty The Cameroon Political Balance Sheet When the Powers of Europe sat in Berlin in 1884 to 1885 and partitioned Africa between themselves as hunters share their slain elephant, one of the parts was named Kamerun and given to Germany. This is the German version of a name that began with Rio dos Cameros (Portuguese), Cameroons (English). Cameroun (French). The Germans ran the territory mostly through their plantation system for thirty years (1886 to 1916). The First World War in 1914 found Germany facing Britain and France, and the British forces from Nigeria seized the western portion of the territory next to Nigeria in 1916. The French took the eastern, much bigger part. At the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 following the end of the war in 1918, the victorious allies of France and Britain formally took their shares of the once German colony, the British administering theirs as an integral part of their territory (Nigeria) while the French administered their. much larger piece as a separate complete unit in their colonial empire. All the former German colonies were placed under the mandate of the League of Nations the world body which emerged out of Versailles, and agreements were signed between the League and Britain and France, as the mandatory powers. British Cameroons administered in two portions (the southern part under Eastern Nigeria and the north under Northern Nigeria) attained independence in 1961 after 45 years, through a plebiscite in which the majority of its population had voted for union with the Frenchadministered part, it having attained independence a year earlier in 1960. Both now exist as the Republic of Cameroon. The northern portion of British Cameroons had elected at the UNOorganised plebiscite of 1961, to remain with Northern Nigeria for her independence. So had ended the exercise which began in 1884/1885 in Berlin when this part of Africa was accorded that initial identity the Germans had named Kamerun. The reborn state of Cameroon today can look back from 1884, in working out the balance sheet of her history and story. Thirty years of German Kamerun, forty-five years of British administration of her part, forty-four years of the French on their part. Thirty-seven/thirty- 284  eight years since independence in 1960/1961. We must not forget an earlier thirty years of British connection (1858-1886). This period began from 1858 when a British Baptist missionary Alfred Saker sailed into Ambas Bay with some two hundred ex-slaves from America and founded Victoria, now Limbe. The place was named Victoria after Queen Victoria of England, and so started the thirty years of that first British connection. This is why we add those early 30 years to fortyfive to give seventy-five years in favour of our British link, and if we add the thirty-seven years since independence (30+45+37) we end up with 112 years as I write this on 9/11/98. The French have their total of only (44+37) 81 years. It must frankly surprise any analyst to see what results the French can show, for 81 years against the British 112 years. Against this picture, we must add the fact that the German plantations and 200 freed slaves from America were all on the British side. Why the British with 112 years of connection can be so beaten by the French in Cameroon with only 81 years, sounds like a milliondollar question. Let us now turn to the last part of this balance sheet, after independence and unification in 1961. On the British side in 1961, the picture showed Mr. J. N. Foncha as Prime Minister and Vice President of the Republic with Ahmadou Ahidjo as President. With a Federal system of Government in place, we had the Federal Government in Yaounde at the top of the pyramid with the Federated states and their Governments at Buea and Yaounde. From the Buea base John Ngu Foncha, Augustine Ngom Jua and Solomon Tandeng Muna became Prime Ministers in succession while on the other side Charles Assale and Simon Pierre Tsoungui had been Prime Ministers. With a constitutional change in 1972 that abolished the Federal arrangement ushering in its place a unitary system, J. N. Foncha who had been Vice President since the union, continued for some time before being replaced by S.T. Muna. Ahidjo had continued as President. Deriving its origin from the Federal constitution where it was provided that when a citizen from one of the Federated states...

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