Urgent need for Anglophone Memorandum!.

To begin with, when the two political entities of Southern Cameroons, English-speaking, and the Republique du Cameroun, French-speaking, reunified in October 1961, the Southern Cameroons brought into the Union specificities like: Parliamentary System of democracy, English Language, Common Law Judicial system, Anglo-Saxon Educational system and Traditional Chieftaincy institution, which acted as the Upper House of Parliament.

As the South West Chiefs Conference pointed out to His Excellency in a memo of June 6, 2015, "...the promise of reunification, i.e. the building blocks of our cultural and political identity and personality, with which we had to build our expectations of success and sociopolitical and economic development with the demise of colonial rule" have not been met.

Soon after reunification, the people of former Southern Cameroons, later West Cameroon and now the North West and South West Regions, who joined the State of La Republic du Cameroon, as equal States, have been unfairly treated.

In mid-December 2016, at the height of the turmoil, Hon Joseph Wirba, an Anglophone Member of Parliament, denounced from the floor of the National Assembly, the violent repression against "the people of West Cameroon".

Hon Wirba had highlighted that the main reason for Anglophones who are advocating separation is their resentment of the marginalisation of the people of the two English-speaking Regions, who he said are being mocked by their Francophone brothers as "two cubs of sugar".

Even before him, the late John Ngu Foncha, who negotiated reunification with French Cameroon in 1961, wrote in his resignation letter from the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, CPDM, in June 1990, complaining that:"...Anglophones in Cameroon who I brought into this union are now viewed as 'Biafrans' and 'enemies within the home...”.

Later, however, Foncha expressed regret about the union of the two Cameroons, particularly during the effervescent displays of Anglophone nationalism in the 1990s, when the elite crystallised deliberations at the All Anglophone Conferences in Buea (AAC I, 1992) and Bamenda (AAC II, 1993).

Both conferences were aimed at advancing Anglophone interests in Cameroon.

Prof Carlson Anyangwe, one of the initiators of the AAC, later described the treatment of Anglophones by their "brothers" of the Yaounde regime as "a case of ‘annexation, shrouded in subterfuge,’ by French Cameroon, with the complicity of France, Britain and the United Nations, UN".   

Subsequent differences within the Anglophone elite and government’s dismissive response to many of the Anglophone demands, following the AACs prompted the establishment of a dissident, radical separatist movement, the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, in 1995.

The SCNC, it must be said, showed a long and complex genealogy to Anglophone nationalism, which later fueled the current conflict.

Your Excellency, if the Anglophone elite have not had the courage, audacity and honesty to tell you the bitter truth, permit us take this opportunity to do so, hoping it will tickle and massage their conscience to write an urgent memo to you, just in case you might question our locus standi to advise your summit office.

In the area of public appointments, which should reflect national character and equilibrium between the two cultures, no Anglophone has ever been General Manager or Deputy General of SONARA, since its creation in 1972! Though located on Anglophone soil, the overwhelming majority of senior and junior staff are Francophones.

The unofficial language at SONARA, based in Limbe, is French, just like it is at the Police Training School in Mutengene in the South West Region.

At the Presidency of the Republic, no Anglophone has ever been appointed as Secretary General or Director of Civil Cabinet since reunification. 

It is the same scenario in key ministries like Communication, External Relations, Finance, Higher Education, Defence or General Delegation of National Security; despite their reputed competence, even at the international level, thanks to their Anglo-Saxon education, which dominates the world.

In diplomacy, no Anglophone has ever been Ambassador in key missions in Paris, Abuja, Washington, United Nations or Germany. It was after the cry and hue of separatists that an Anglophone was appointed High Commissioner to London recently.

Unlike at reunification, when the second most powerful personality was an Anglophone, today Anglophones have been demoted to a humiliating fourth position in the country's power ranking. 

The office comes after the President of the Republic, Senate and Speaker of the National Assembly.

As for infrastructure, the neglect is glaring for the blind to see. The Bamenda Ring Road remains uncompleted, the Kumba to Bamenda road, passable all year round during the days of West Cameroon is today a death trap.

Since SONARA in Limbe was burnt five years ago, it remains unrepaired; ironically a modern refinery is being built in Kribi.

The natural Limbe Deep Seaport operational in the good old days of West Cameroon, has been abandoned and another constructed in Kribi.

The Tiko Airport, which used to host direct flights to London, has systematically been abandoned, so is the Yoke Dam in Muyuka, Fako Division, which supplied uninterrupted electricity in West Cameroon.

The torrid neglect had been pointed out exhaustively in "An open letter to President Biya on Anglophone marginalisation", in 2013, by Kristian Ngah Christian, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of this daily newspaper, just like the Bishops of the Ecclesiastical Province of Bamenda in December 2016.

The men of God of a religion Your Excellency adheres to, submitted a memorandum to you, outlining the Anglophone crisis as a deep-seated issue rooted "in post-colonial inequality and cultural erosion".

The Guardian Post appreciates the initiative of Your Excellency to attempt resolving the crisis through the Major National Dialogue, staged in Yaounde, in 2019.

The resolutions and a number of peremptory executive decrees and very high instructions you initiated in late 2019, have failed to douse Anglophones’ strident calls for greater autonomy, who have criticised some of the outcomes as “sham concessions” that are "too little, too late" to resolve the now close to 10 years crisis.

Anglophone elite, especially those occupying juicy positions or are of the ruling CPDM party, would not want to say "the emperor has no clothes." It is an idiom in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale, which describes a situation where an obvious truth is ignored until someone bravely points it out. 

There is no gainsaying the fact that the nation is anxiously awaiting the appointment of Vice President, a new government and shake up in some State corporations.

That is why, we, at The Guardian Post, are urging Anglophone elite; be they of the CPDM, opposition, clergy, civil society, media, judiciary and traditional institutions, to without any waste of time, mobilise and pen a Memorandum on the situation of Anglophones in Cameroon. 

We believe, strongly, that if such a memo paints the true picture of the marginalisation of Anglophones in all sectors of public life, and the underdevelopment of their Regions, President Biya, who once described Bamenda as "my second home", will not offer himself the luxury of ignoring it; especially at such a sensitive period in the life of our beautiful country, Cameroon.

In the same vein, if President Biya reads the memo, and provide immediate solutions for the issues raised, it will strengthen social, economic and political institutions capable of making Cameroon emerge collectively by 2035 as a modern State truly respecting the specificities of each culture, equity, justice and democratic norms.

This article was first published The Guardian Post Edition No:3756 of Friday April 10, 2026