For the past several days I, like every other English-speaking Cameroonian, have followed with avid interest the developments of the various strikes that have been going on in the country, as well as the flurry of emotions and opinions that have accompanied them.

The issue at hand is the “Anglophone problem”, which is, the marginalisation of the Anglophones in the country.

A few people tried to deny the presence of any such problem. However, it should have become apparent by now that anybody who thinks as such is gravely mistaken. As such, I will not flog a dead horse. I will assume that the average reader of this essay acknowledges the presence of this problem, and has at least a rudimentary idea of its origin. What I intend to do with this essay is to comment a few peripheral issues, and perhaps offer my solutions for the way forward.

The first thing I noticed during this campaign was an absence of authoritative online journalism in the country. Most of the information circulated about this issue was about the chronological developments of the strikes, and was circulated through social media, which is a good thing.

However, there is a huge downside to this kind of journalism - a lot of the information was circulated in soundbites, which leaves huge potential for misinformation. There were many ideas floating in different [blog and other] posts – “the marriage between Southern Cameroons and La République”, “Oui or Yes”, the assertion that the union between Southern Cameroon and East Cameroon was never ratified by the UN, etc. As such, it was difficult to put together a coherent narrative of what it was that was going on. However, I couldn’t find any authoritative online sources, who could tie all of this rich historical detail with the struggle that Anglophone Cameroonians have been facing for the past half century ¹.

In this case, the issue of journalism may not be so serious. Pretty much every Cameroonian with a high school education has a working knowledge of our colonial history, and has at the very least a rudimentary knowledge of the origins of the problem at hand. However, people who have accurate historical details about the situation are not very common. The lack of data in all the information circulating online is also quite prominent. Again, this case was special in that the issue was so salient that one can forgive the absence of data, but the future may not be as forgiving. Some issues may be a lot more contentious.

One of the things I would have hoped to see in this case would be journalists who would give cogent, historically sound analyses of the situation, so that those interested could have more or less informed opinions on the issue, and not only details about the chronological developments of the saga.

Secondly, there is the big issue – what do we want? What is the endgame of all this?

Presently, there are two distinguishable strains of thought: the secessionists, who think that the best thing for us all would be for us to go the separate ways as nations, and those who think we should stay together, but as a Federal Republic - with two states (Southern Cameroon and La République).

I disagree with both.

The first group is perhaps justified in wanting separation, but I think their anger is misdirected. They are operating on the assumption that the Anglophone problem is caused by Francophones as a people. Per their rhetoric, there is some grand conspiracy by Francophones to oppress Anglophones. This is simply false.

Once you leave the major cities – Douala, Yaoundé and Bafoussam, there is not plenty of infrastructural development in the other parts of the country. In fact, large parts of the East, South, and Northern regions of the country are largely undeveloped. I would even argue that the development in these regions can be explained by the fact that the first two of the aforementioned cities are the economic and political capital respectively, and people from the Western Region tend to invest heavily in their hometowns.

The problem therefore comes from an oppressive, unresponsive and largely incompetent government; a broken governance system. This problem affects all [ordinary] Cameroonians – only that the average Anglophone feels it more heavily than the average Francophone.

Anybody who has lived sufficiently long in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon knows that under normal circumstances, both regions are not as united as they seem to be now. These regions differ markedly in culture, and there have been many incidences in their past to indicate that those differences are not superficial.

For many decades, these two regions have been united by the fact that they are a minority in their own country because of the language they speak, and the Anglo-Saxon culture they share. They have spoken with one voice on a national level because of the presence of a common “enemy”: a system that neglects their needs. As a people, they have always needed to fight for everything they want, and have shared the frustration of having to struggle to be perceived as equals with their French-speaking peers.

However, if this battle is won, then that enemy will no longer be present to preserve the seemingly seamless unity between both regions. Anglophones will no longer be defined in opposition to Francophones, but as Anglophones, simple. What will happen then? If they secede, or become one state in a Federal Republic, what is the guarantee that they will get along as well?

Sovereignty is quite an interesting topic. When a group of people are sovereign, they are free to do as they see fit. As such, sovereignty is a good thing, in principle. But then, what level of sovereignty makes sense? Why choose sovereignty at the national level, or state level, instead of family sovereignty?

The whole point of the strikes going on is the rejection of national sovereignty (or well, sovereignty at the level of La Republique). A corollary to this argument seems to be that sovereignty at the level of Southern Cameroon will be ideal – but that is a very delicate idea to advance.

if I am an average citizen in a democratic setting, I would want to have as much influence as possible on the people who are making decisions that affect me, and I would want those people to understand my needs and care about them. This would suggest that decisions should be taken at the lowest level possible. However, there is a limit to how low you can go – decisions about what roads to build in a city cannot be taken at the family level, for example.

Another way to put it is this: do North Westerners and South Westerners trust each other enough to be sovereign together? In the absence of foreign pressure, would they believe that the elected officials in a Republic of Southern Cameroon, or a Southern Cameroon state, care enough about them irrespective of whether they are from the North or South West Regions? The evidence so far seems to suggest otherwise ².

I think that federation is the way to go, but the federation should be much finer. A good template would be a Federal Republic, comprised of ten states – the ten regions of the country at the moment.