By Mwalimu George Ngwane
Prologue
As Delegates at the Great Debate officially called the Major National Dialogue ponder over the mechanisms and modalities that can resonate with President Biya’s concern with solving the crisis in the North West and South West regions, their minds shall inadvertently be filled with long term institutional guarantees that would both stem the tide of the crisis and forestall the eventuality of further conflict. History is replete with cases of Peace Talks ending either in resentment and re-escalation or in reconciliation and de-escalation. The choice therefore is in the hands of the over four hundred delegates that have been invited nationally but particularly in the hearts of those representing the North West and South West regions. As a writer in Politics and keen observer of Anglophone historiography in governance and conflict transformation, I have noticed a convergence of opinion among the Anglophones on the word Federation with its accompanying semantic correlation to autonomy. Their differences have been on the form. Going by the pre-Dialogue consultations in Buea and Bamenda, the population seemed to have shown apprehension for decentralization in preference to some face of Federation. What unites these two populations in their quest for a durable solution to their protracted crisis is more relevant than what divides them. Lest we forget, the Yaounde Great Debate is engendered by the unfortunate events that have made the South West and North West regions the cauldron of bloodletting and the bastion of human misery and economic tragedy. Yet, and this must be made crystal clear, these unfortunate events may have been triggered by the Lawyers and Teachers socio-political grievances in 2016 but the origin or root cause of 2016 is, with due respect to other historical interpretations, born in 1972. It is important that the Anglophone disease is treated from its cause rather than from the symptom. This is the challenge that time, history and the people have conferred on the Yaounde Great Debate. If therefore the Yaounde Delegates choose to address the cause and not the symptoms, if they choose to go beyond the item on decentralization and local government to encompass the virtue in constitutional reforms, if they choose to apply to the letter President Biya’s statement that the major focus of the Great Debate is predominantly issues that have rocked the very existence of the South West and North West regions, and if the Delegates from these two regions choose to remain focused on their clamor for some form of a federation, then an examination of a few faces of Federation may be necessary.
A two-tier Federation
This is a vertical and horizontal dispensation that is rooted in the 1961 history with the emergence of West and East Cameroon states coming together under a Federal Republic. The vertical angle calls for a return to that 1961 historical experience (which some South Westerners hate to remember) but with a horizontal angle that expresses the need for autonomous regions under that historical experience. In other words while the 1961 experience was basically two states, a two-tier Federation clamors for two states above an (x) number of autonomous regions in the country. This face of Federation was proposed by the 65 man Standing Committee of the All Anglophone Conference in April 1993 and is contained in their document called Draft Federal Constitution of Cameroon published in English and French. Proponents of the two-tier federation draw inspiration from the Reunification bicultural context of the country and the urgency to give both historical entities their defunct executive arms of government but also taking into consideration the socio-political evolution and concerns.
A Legislative Federation
It is also inspired by the Reunification bicultural context of the country but it instead seeks separate Legislatures rather than separate executive governments as seats of governance. It calls for two Parliaments (one on each side of the Mungo) in which laws relating to the binary context of each segment are treated in content and context. In this way the principle of a one-size-fits-all, the fear of assimilation and the phantom of exclusion are greatly minimized. The Welsh and Scottish Parliaments within the United Kingdom could be of reference.
A Special measure Federation
It is founded on the concept of autonomous regions with elected officials. The major concern here is with the North West and South West regions which would require special measures as institutional protection to their Anglo-Saxon background. These special measures may include but are not limited to a Judiciary system (Common law system), an Anglo-Saxon Education system (anchored by an Education Council), a Language Act which responds to what Language Commissioners call the policy of active offer and the principle of proportionality (whereby English is the first official working language in the two regions). Another area of special measure would be the economic law of Derivation (and this will also apply to other regions) which makes it mandatory for royalties from sub-soil resources to be allocated to the regions. The special measure Federation therefore claims unity in diversity as its governance mantra. The Quebec example in Canada could be a source of reference.
A loose Federation
It is one that emphasizes greater autonomy with accelerated devolution and deconcentration to local governments. It seeks to empower citizens to take control of public affairs at the bottom and calls for election of indigenous officials at every stratum of the governance pyramid. While they remain satisfied with elected officials within their local governments the citizens also militate for rotational representation at the central government. This in their opinion is a means of branding the bicultural diplomatic image a country is endowed with. The Nigerian case might be of reference.
Epilogue
The Yaounde Great Debate is not an end by itself but an entry point into a long journey of conflict transformation. Nonetheless it remains the litmus test of the frankness, sincerity and commitment to restoring sanity and normalcy to the fractured and fissured identities of the people in the South West and North West regions. Even with some of its procedural lapses and double-speak metaphors, the Yaounde Great Debate shall for the next days remain the quintessential Peoples’ Court where the conscience of the Delegates shall be put in the dock. It is a court of conscience in which the Presiding Judge and all must realize that the North West and South West case or simply the Anglophone File constitutes the major subject of the proceedings. Our collective aspiration is that when the Presiding Judge shall shout “Court” the verdict must have been weighed towards facts that seek the peaceful coexistence that we are looking for.