During his recent visit to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, French President, Emmanuel Macron is reported to have declared that his Cameroonian counterpart should do everything possible for peace to return to the two Anglophone regions of the North West and South West and that this should be accompanied immediately by th implementation of what has always been the Cameroon government’s position of decentralization in the format of ten regions. We in this Newspaper strongly believe that President Macron’s declaration has not and cannot help or, even offer a lasting solution to the present crisis situation in the country. We think the French President has rushed to take a stand that will only further complicate issues, and it is easy to discover the secret hand of France in whatever has been happening in Cameroon, because the interest of France is obviously supreme to the French.
We say this because knowing very well, as history keeps reminding us, that due to some prevailing circumstances at the time, France reluctantly granted independence to her former colonies in the early sixties, and that, that country has since never given up her secret agenda of a ‘’Greater France’’, which before independence included her former colonies, including also the former French Cameroun. Which therefore means that till date, even the bi-literal engagements between France and her former colonies, are crafted in such a way that will always reflect France’s domineering interest in whatever prevailing situation.
In the case of Cameroon and as concerns the Anglophone problem, it would be unthinkable to expect a French president, no matter how radical he may portray himself to be, to depart from those fundamental details that make up for France’s relationship with her former colonies. An inbuilt phobia for federalism is one of them. To illustrate this better, in 1967, former President Charles De Gaulle traveled to Canada to persuade the people of the French speaking province of Quebec to quit the Canadian federation. How then could anyone expect President Macron to depart from such a valuable culture that stands supreme in protecting Frances’ interest in a federal structure such as the one we have in Cameroon of two diverse cultures and languages and even institutions?
All what is obvious in Macron’s declaration is that he has chosen the soft side of a hard nut to crack in the hope that, that soft side will favour his country and their allies in Cameroon. The bottom line in Macron’s declaration is that he has taken sides with the regime. We expected the French president, with all his fraternal relations with his Cameroonian counterpart, to influence him to call for an inclusive dialogue instead of simply leaning on an unpopular option of a decentralisation which has taken almost two decades for the same government to implement.
We strongly believe that right thinking Cameroonians have become fed-up with any suggestions to solving the problem of the Anglophones that do not bear any pressure on the regime to call for a meaningful dialogue. Not even commissions which have even seemed to come anyway near the solution. Cameroonians, both Anglophones and Francophones alike, have come to realise that the government of Cameroon has always hidden its errors or, even sinister intentions, under the pretext of setting up commissions just to give the impression that they are in search of solutions. The irony always turns out that most of the times the reports of these commissions are neither made public, nor are their recommendations implemented. We consider this kind of governance system not only dishonest but hypocritical, especially under circumstances such as the country is going through at the moment.
Take for example, the much parroted and even criticised Musonge Commission named the National Commission for the Promotion of Bi-lingualism and Multi-culturalism which was charged with the responsibility of promoting what the government which appointed this commission gave the impression that the Anglophone problem was solely hinged on these two factors which constitute the grievances of the Anglophones and by extension, the entire Cameroonian society. Even as the commission was criticized by many at the time it was announced, on the ground in these two regions, it happened to have broken some new grounds. In both regions, the commission was fed with the details of what exactly constituted the grievances of the Anglophones, leading to the present situation in which people are being killed, dispossessed and even rendered homeless.
Having said this, what is now evident is that the same government which appointed the commission now seems not to have trust in it, probably because it never got the results it expected. The same head of state who felt it very pressing to send a commission to the field simply decided to develop a new strategy of spearheading a partisan national humanitarian fund for victims of the crisis in the two provinces. Worse still, the president has gone ahead to convene the electorate for October 7 when blood is still flowing on both sides in both regions. We think once again he has missed the point.