PAUL BIYA’S COMMISSION ON BILINGUALISM: THE END TIMES OF A FAILED UNION ¹

The non-respect of the bilingual, bijural and bicultural character of Cameroon presented by the Anglophone Consortium of Civil Society associations was one among a plethora proofs that a supposed union that was contemplated in 1961 between the Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroun had failed.   The Consortium in taking this position was merely conveying the position of a majority of the people of the Southern Cameroons who alone voted in a plebiscite to attain independence by joining the Republic of Cameroun in Federal Union founded on the equality of the two states.

Whereas the non-violability of the federal character of the country was enshrined in article 47 of the supposed federal constitution, other provisions of the constitutions protected the bijural, bicultural and bilingual nature of the federation;  re-enforcing the sacrosanct character of this inviolability clause.   History will hold Babatoura Ahmadou Ahidjo and Paul Biya responsible for their treasonable conduct in destroying this fundamental basis on which this experiment was anchored.

Southern Cameroonians are justified in holding firmly that with the collapse of the purported federation, the bilingual, bijural and bicultural character of the country, and a return in 1984 of East Cameroon to its name and identity at independence on January 1960, the putative union was dead.  They were entitled as a matter of international law, to regain their own identity at independence on October 1, 1961.

The actions by Paul Biya in disbanding the Consortium, kidnapping its leaders and other significant Southern Cameroon leaders and charging them on spurious politically motivated charges before a Francophone court-martial for presenting the very grievances which he has trivialized by decreeing a so-called National Commission on Bilingualism are to say the least infantile and laughable.  Not only are the Consortium Leaders, Barrister Felix Agbor Nkongho and Dr Neba Fontem along with Mancho Bibixy, Hon Justice Chief Paul Ayah, Mola Njoh Litumbe and hundreds of Southern Cameroonians still in detention, the perpetration of  widespread and systemic crimes against humanity and genocide of the Southern Cameroons is ongoing with impunity.

In this situation, the question may be asked, for what purpose is a so-called Commission on bilingualism wrapped in the blood of Southern Cameroonians when there is an internet blockade of the territory, egregious crimes and violations against armless civilians, the continuing detention and trial of its citizens?  Of what importance we may ask, is a supposed decree creating a consultative Commission on bilingualism when Mr. Paul Biya the supposed guarantor of the Constitution has over the past 34 years failed to enforce the Constitutional provision on bilingualism.  So therefore, in the estimation of Mr. Biya a right which the Constitution has failed to afford at the detriment of Southern Cameroonians will be obtained by a mere decree?

So for Mr. Paul Biya has come to the conclusion that Southern Cameroonians have become so malleable, gullible and dispensable to the extent that not satisfied with the crimes that have claimed the lives of many, the impunity with which these crimes are perpetrated, he, through this ridiculous commission intends to move a step further in dancing on the graves of the slaughtered and spitting in the mouths of the kidnapped and the detained?.

This decree is a belated admission of failure and a public confession of Mr. Paul Biya’s treasonable violation of his own Constitution over 34 years for which he should be arrested and prosecuted.

The so-called Commission established by decree is a nullity and of no legal value whatsoever because it cannot and will never attain the results which the failed Constitution failed to attain.  If anything, considered within the backdrop of the resistance of the Southern Cameroons against annexation and colonial rule, this decree along with the consistent pattern of crimes, systemic violations and the bastardization of our cultural values, this decree is one among many actions taken by Paul Biya to give effect to the end of the putative union as we know it.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group