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Foreword
- LANGAA RPCIG
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xiii Foreword Writing a foreword to a book written by a luminous historiographer like Anthony Ndi can be exciting and challenging. Exciting because it gives one the opportunity to discover new facts and appreciate new techniques in the state of the art of historiography. In the same instance, presenting a foreword to a study of this calibre is also challenging. Challenging because the historical plot espoused by the author resides in a setting of controversies where the tension between the force of argument and the argument of force seem to be conspicuously evident and where rhetoric and reality stand astride. The study is premised in a context of disdain and suspicion on apologetic historical axioms where poles of adherence share opinions and shades facts. This makes the author to think that “political action in society oscillates between lived experience, reflection on lived experience and conception”. In whatever case, it is in his judgment that the architect of historical construction is very powerful, indomitable, and is capable of achieving any aim he sets for himself”. It is with this objective that the author re-visits central debates in Cameroon’s political history especially those pegged around the events prior to, during and after the reunification between British Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon. Interestingly, the author has drawn evidence from the same sources used by other historians to bring in fresh insights to what he terms “the persistent stigmatization of Dr. John Ngu Foncha”, a key factor and actor in Cameroon’s political history. A case in time is the “Alleged Secret Deals and hidden documents saga between Foncha and Ahidjo in Cameroon history where extensive references are made to Malcom Milne’s No Telephone to Heaven… but where thorough investigations produce divergent results. Here comes a historical muse that gives an incisive flash back of events in pre-independence Cameroon and chains up with developments leading to the birth and death of the federal and unitary states in Cameroon. In length and breadth, the author has quarried most of what constitute useful data to provide and reorient the sense of interpretation of what remains in living history as “the inescapable xiv traps of the reunification tale”. The book, Revisiting Southern Cameroons 1951-1972: Unveiling Inescapable Traps is a new rendition of Cameroon history where facts, clear and unbridled as they are, straight and uncheckered as they appear, bring new evidences to hitherto uncharted investigations. The author responds with lucidity and precision to what runs in shady or anti-scientific opinions in extraacademic circles and what can be termed uncritical or tangential reasoning in scholarly circles. The author with very untainted insight places his investigation within the ambit of controversies, ambivalences, ambiguities as well as emotional and apologetic historiography surrounding the process of reunification in Cameroon. It is an abysmal investigation where individual interests are discarded for the sake of historical objectivity. The book undoubtedly deepens appreciation in Cameroon’s national history as it canvasses the centrality of the process of reunification with the aim of giving it a sense of purpose and relevance. This book coming at a time when the nation is celebrating its Golden Jubilee is valued for its distinctive artistic style which is simple and eloquent and for its contents which is original and critical in shaping truncated facts. The actor-oriented approach used by the author, in most parts, where the voices of the key players of the reunification process are brought to the fore, understood in their context and analysed to dispel contravening circumstances is perhaps the yardstick that makes this authoritative source of historical writing, a must read stuff. In very unequivocal sense, this book is a cornerstone in the era of historiographical renaissance in Cameroon. At the same time, it is going to provoke much more insightful research. Mathew Basung Gwanfogbe, PhD, Associate Professor of History, ...