In this photograph, JN Foncha inspects a full guard of honour in Southern Cameroons that existed since 1954-1961.
That territory is today broken up into two administrative regions called North West and South West regions respectively in the Republic of Cameroun.
We are not in short supply of names. From Southern Cameroons to West Cameroon, through the Federal Republique of Cameroun, to North West and South West provinces, and now Regions.
The arrogant majority also called us Les Anglos. In the years back, Anlgo girls in the then super crowded and lone university of Yaounde were branded as Les Gauchers or leftists (which meant the odd ones, substandard, inferior, cheap, second class etc).
Not long ago, anglophones were being commonly referred to as Les Biafra; les enemies dans la maison (enemies in the house) two cubes of sugar.
Then came the name ‘Les bamenda’, for all anglophones including those from the coastal areas. Curiously though, it is the same reference that those who gladly call themselves “South Westerners” attribute to their brothers of the grasslands. Indeed, ‘Bamenda People” has a slightly different meaning in Buea, Kumba or Victoria which the francophone dominated government renamed as Limbe. There it could mean Over Savvy man, Grabber, stranger or in local parlance, “come no go”. The latter was promoted by ruling party elite and administrators from the region. It was a good thing for the Biya government that thrives on divide-and-rule tactics in the ever suspicious Anglos.
In Yaounde, les bamenda could mean primitive, villager, unenlightened, subservient fellow who should be exploited. Of course, until a decade ago when rights groups carried out mass education and sensitization campaigns against child and girl trafficking, many Bamenda girls from Nkambe, Oku, Bafut, Ndop etc were shipped into francophone homes where they were virtually enslaved with domestic work.
The girls were so honest, humble and obedient to their new families or employers or owners. That is because of their strong moral upbringing. Come and and see how their francophone hosts teased and exploited them. To their exploiters, the girls were feeble minded and stupid. Good to note that domestic servants from Up Country as the Bamenda region is fondly referred to, have become wiser and empowered. Treat them badly today and you would get instant karma.
Politically, the name Bamenda was equivalent to politically matured breed of people; conscious of their human and peoples rights. In the 90s the Yaounde authorities often sort to know if Bamenda People would be happy with any decisions or policies they were about to take. And with the Ambazonia crisis and three years of resistance, this perception of the Bamenda, anglophone or Ambazonia people has somply been reinforced. I know of friends and colleagues who are now respected in their work places to the point where their francophone bosses often seek their views in decision making.
Their derogatory reference of Anglofools has phased out but not completely disappeared. When non state fighters emerged as Amba Boys, francophones quickly renamed them as Ambazozo dismissing the group as rag tag group that should be ignored.
They had fun, great fun on social media mocking and laughing at the boys. Well they finally abandoned the name when they came to the harsh realities that kids with primitive guns had resisted the all powerful government troops for nearly three years and worth non negligible casualties and deaths. You see why as Ambazozo faded out.
Then they picked up the word terrorists, hoping to persuade the whole world to adopt same. It did not work. They then adopted “fanciful” terms like extremists, separatists, bandits. Well, that’s for the select group. What about the rest of the population west of the Mungo? Well they got a new name.
Listen to Francophone journalists how they now refer to the peoples of the former British Southern Cameroons. NOSO – short form for Northwest And Southwest regions respectively. Anglophone journalists are also faithfully adapting to this francophone renaming attitudes. To them nothing is in a name. How unfortunate!
At the start of the crisis, the authorities prohibited the use of the term Federation in the media! You remember well right? You recall how the press obeyed. Remember how the press was scared of mentioning the name Ambazonia? Who would want his media business being shut down?
Well, you sure recall how only The Voice newspaper took exception calling the spade a spade. In our audacity of upholding nothing but the truth, we did not for one moment twist history nor our tongue. Our colleagues feared for us, expressing same through text messages or on the phone.Yet we knew we were on the right side of history. As evidenced by Our motto – The Audacity of Truth – such names as ‘Southern Cameroons’, ‘Ambazonia’ never became taboo to us. How could we have ignored historical facts? We are glad our trailblazing ‘liberated’ the press and all and sundry are now freely reporting as they should.
Even so, there are names that are not being used. Government officials must not be heard uttering the words Southern Cameroons. They must only mention Anglophones when criticising rights activists. Ambazonia is taboo, except when nailing the Ambazonia Republic campaigners or their philosophy.
In three years of blood letting, not even the president has mentioned the word Ambazonia. Except in Buea, we never heard Paul Biya even mention Southern Cameroons. Just like he never mentioned the name of the then fire brand opposition leader, Ni John Fru Ndi, talk less of talking to him. Both men only met when Biya was sufficiently convinced that his opponent had been thoroughly weakened politically.
It is the same philosophy of tiring or wearing out your opponent that Paul Biya is using against the Ambazonia restorationists, as they like to be called.
With the Ambazonia cause now struggling, you can see that Biya’s regime is in no haste to resolve the crisis that is draining the country’s finances. See why the Special Status is a scam? What was even the purpose and outcome of the national dialogue? Why did Mr President even have to qualify it as MAJOR National Dialogue? How does it happen that parliament is closing in two day’s time without debating and defining the contents of the so-called special status for the Northwest and Southwest regions? And this even after Paul Biya testified on a world stage about the Special Status to address the cultural and historical specificities of English speakers.
Even so, the said special status was not even the outcome of some debate at the national dialogue forum. It was simply a piece of paper recovered from a drawer where it was locked up since the 1996 constitutional conference. And since the best place to hide something from a Cameroonian is to put it in a book, the Special Status was buried in the constitution. It will take a Francophone former minister to dust it and present it at the dialogue forum.
Then later, they pumped money into what they named Peace Caravans. Another scam! Perhaps anxious to ingeenier peace, catholic bishops with big reputations agreed to spearhead the mission to explain the outcome of the Yaounde Major National Dialogue. Yet it was like father Christmas visiting expectant populations with an empty basket. Those who ventured to the towns and villages in amored cars found it a daunting task to explain what they did not even understand. And before anyone knew it, the caravan was back to town and business over.
What an interesting country. Everyone is singing about a status but no one, and perhaps not even Paul the President knows exactly how to polish up the hoax. He has since slumped into his familiar strategic silence and leaving his PM and the rest of us confused. Speculations are high, everyone asking, what next?
And many English speakers are making a mockery of the whole business of the francophone dominated government giving a special status to a part of the country that was enjoying the fruits of multi-party democracy, free and fair elections and peaceful change of government, whilst the French Cameroun repubique was not even in existence. More so, a bloody war with maquisards was raging on at the time with southern Cameroons playing refuge for “asylum seekers”.
See how we are waiting for a special Status like orphans, from people who were originally our equal partners when they arranged this concubinage. Hear this disappointed Southern Cameroonian lament:
“How shameful it is for some of our own Southern Cameroonians going round pretending to woo their own people of a fake status. Shame again once more.”
One more line in this random writing. What is the status of the special status? Hi hi hi. See them laughing at…
The other day, someone repeated the old familiar phrase… All “Frogs Are The Same.” It’s a way anglophones refer to francophones especially in the face of the Anglophone Question cum Crisis. Some anglophones who had hoped that Prof. Maurice Kamto would treat Anglophones differently if he had the opportunity, were shocked with his approach during a live Equinoxe TV talk show recently.
To them, it is the latest display of the One Spirit that would rally francophones as one man when it concerns to anglophone nationalism or should I say resistance? The type of resistance which according to Hon. Joseph Wirba, two cubes of sugar would refuse to melt in a basin of water. Yet, with the increasing atrocities being perpetuated by civilian gun men against the same people they claim they are fighting for, we might just expect names and renaming.
Random Thoughts By Randy Joe Sa’ah .