By DOH JAMES SONKEY IN YAOUNDE
Historian, Peace and Conflict Management Analyst, Prof Dze Ngwa Willibroad has declared that genuine dialogue is the key to laying to rest accumulated frustrations that led to the outburst of what is commonly referred to now as the Anglophone problem in Cameroon.
While regretting the fact that there has been no genuine dialogue between Anglophones and Francophones for the past 54 years of living together, he said other options such as secession, federalism and Southern Cameroon statehood restoration should remain open for the people to decide for themselves what is best as a way forward.
Prof Dze Ngwa who is one of Cameroon’s rare Historians with courage and intellectual uprightness to categorically state historical facts the way they happened without fear of intimidation in the heart of the socio-political crisis in the North West and South West Regions made the declaration last Saturday June 3, 2017 in the nation capital as Guest Speaker at the Yaoundé Chapter monthly meeting of the Cameroon Anglophone Journalists Association, CAMASEJ.
Delivering a talk on the Foumban Conference of 17-21 July 1961 at the request of the journalists, he decried that “I feel very bad when I hear people in bars making comments that the West Cameroon Delegation to the conference led by John Ngu Foncha was misled into taking wrong decisions by the East Cameroon Delegation led by President Amadou Ahidjo. Prof Dze Ngwa stressed that “President Ahidjo came to the conference with a Constitution of La Republique which was simply adjusted to include clauses that will protect the Anglophone minority in what was later called the Federal Constitution. The Anglophone problem today is caused by the non respect of those clauses.”
Insisting that there is no legal document on the union of the English part and the French part of Cameroon, Prof Dze Ngwa declared that “a political will can do the long awaited magic in solving the Anglophone crisis.”
The Historian, Peace and Conflict Management Analyst concluded that if Anglophones are demanding for the restoration of Southern Cameroon statehood today, it means that the foundation on which national unity was built by President Ahidjo and John Ngu Foncha has dislocated thereby necessitating an urgent need for genuine dialogue in order to preserve a united Cameroon rich in diversity.