For those who had been following events related to what has now become known as the Anglophone crisis, it could not have come as a surprise that the mission of the president of the National Episcopal Conference, Archbishop Kleda. to the two Anglophone Regions met with a stonewall. The Archbishop ought to have realized from the very beginning of the crisis, that the organization he heads, the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, stood a better chance over any other body, to mediate in the crisis, which today he is only struggling to patch-up broken pieces of a whole.
That the primary objective of his mission to the North West and South West Regions, was to persuade parents to send their children back to school and for the Clergy to order the doors of their education institutions to be opened for schools to resume, has only succeeded in taking away from that much revered organization, the neutrality that is endowed in it. It would not be an over view to believe that the National Episcopal Conference, coming up now, nearly six months after the curtains were drawn open for the melodrama which is rocking the nation today, particularly the two Anglophone regions, then we must admit that there must be something wrong within the conference.
We are saying this because we are aware that Bishops of the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province, BAPEC, which covers both the North West and South West regions, had addressed a memorandum to President Biya at the beginning of the protest last year, which justified the reasons for the regional outcry and at the same time proposed remedies that could pave the way forward in every attempt to find a solution to the present stalemate. Unfortunately, none of these remedies seem to have been taken into consideration by government in its usual passive disposition on issues that concern the plight of Anglophones. It is in the same way that the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon has since shown no concern for the plight of this province.
What is obvious therefore is that there is no way we can alter the fact this Ecclesiastic province is a component of the entire Catholic Church in Cameroon. Neither is it reasonable for Archbishop Kleda, all on his own, arrogate to himself the powers or vision to separate this province from the rest of the Catholic Church. We can therefore only be surprised that things crawled during the last six months or so, until today we have landed on the ground where the Bishops, along with heads of other Churches have been dragged to court for allegedly supporting protesters. While this is happening to Bishops of the Anglophone province, neither the Archbishop nor any Bishop of the Francophone part of country, had compassion for their Brothers-in-Christ to show some concern, even through a word of condemnation of the situation the Bishops on this part of the country are going through.
The question that any devout Christian will ask Archbishop Kleda is: How comfortable he feels with his co-clergy being taken to court for an offence that still baffles many, who have been following up events very closely. For the Archbishop to turn up now with a message calling on parents and Clergy to do everything to ensure school reopening, while his Bishops are in the dock, sounds more like a betrayal than an encouragement. By such an appeal from the Archbishop, one can only be tempted to conclud as Fr. Gerald Jumbam stated in his reaction to a letter earlier addressed to bishops of the Bamenda Ecclesiastic Province, by the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, NECC, that the letter was ‘actuated by political rather than Christian motivation’ and that the letter was an ‘impeachment of his brother Bishops of West of the Mungo’
As we had earlier said, the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon stood a better chance to have mediated in this crisis from the very beginning. We still hold that belief because, all that is needed now, is for NECC, to assess its role in the course of the whole crisis, step by step and it discover that its present position in the crisis identifies it more with the government, thus exposing the absence of its neutrality. If the Church of Christ preaches peace and justice, this is an opportunity for the Church to demonstrate its sincerity in its mission. To take sides in situations such as this is certainly not the way forward. The Archbishop should therefore not be surprised that he got not just what he expected in Buea and Bamenda.
There is no doubt that the fact that schools are not functioning as they should, is not a matter to jubilate or claim credits for what is going on. It is first of all, a national disgrace emanating from the fact that it portrays our inability to identify issues that could become explosive, for us to be able to resolve them on time. This is a typical example of such issues we always toy with in the bud. With God’s will, if we go through all this, let it serve as a lesson against the future.
As for the National Episcopal Conference in Cameroon, our advice is that it should allow politicians and politics alone. Straying into their premises could be disastrous most of the times. It is here with us now.