THE NORTHWEST/SOUTHWEST DIVIDE IN CAMEROON AND FINDING A WAY FORWARD

Cameroonian  union-nationalists―those who  believe that the different Cameroonian(even African) peoples  should dwell on their mutual compatibilities, resolve their retarding differences (acknowledging and correcting historical mistakes) and join hands to build an advanced, progressive, united, democratic, prosperous and liberal state―tend to have a hard time doing away with the wedge that divisive forces  have put between Cameroon’s different peoples in their bid to divide and rule, and then exploit the resources of the state to the detriment of the people. So divisive issue of Northwest/Southwest acrimony that the minority six-decade old French-imposed systems is fanning. It is truly a delicate task when it comes to coming up with a balanced opinion based less on emotions and more on reasoning.

By virtue of my birth and upbringing, I am a Southwesterner, albeit a Bamileke+Southwesterner when we also take into account my ancestral origin besides other things.  But having lived the first twelve years of my life in the Southwest, and the next twelve years after that spending portions of each year in both the Northwest and Southwest where my family blended like locals, I might not be condemned for saying that those factors and other revelations enabled me to have an insight into this NORTHWEST/SOUTHWEST issue. Besides, we have people with portions of their blood from both provinces and dozens of other ethnic groups in Cameroon who are my brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, cousins, aunts and uncles.

What is the root cause of vilification in Cameroon? It is mostly political. It is not social or economic because Cameroonians as individuals do not have problems per se with other ethnic groups as a whole, and the overwhelming majority of Cameroonians are economic victims of the system, suffering from systemic deprivations that will only change after we get rid of the Evil-French-imposed system. Bamileké bashers, especially those who grew up in cosmopolitan areas in Cameroon have relatives with Bamileké blood or buddies or people they admire who are Bamilekés. It is the same thing with Beti, Bakwerian, Bassa, Fulani, Bayang, Ngemba, NORTHWEST, SOUTHWEST bashers etc.  So, the root problem of all the schisms is political. And it is aggravated by the system because the system sees divide-and-rule as an effective tool to exploit in order to continue dividing and ruling the people. In that regard, the French political mafia that lords it over Cameroon have been successful in using their puppets to keep us in perpetual bondage.

The political cause(s) of our divide is (are) rooted in our history, which the vast majority of us were deprived of knowing or were brainwashed about. There is nothing as blinding as feeling self-righteous in defending a twisted mindset or conviction. Yes, it is along the line of self-righteousness that some traitorous Cameroonians of Fulani origin would think that Fulanis are entitled to power in Cameroon. It is along that same line that some traitorous Cameroonians of Beti origin would use Martin Paul Samba’s legacy as an anti-German, blame other Cameroonians for not rallying behind him, glorify the alliance Beti and Fulani renegades stroke with the French mafia in Africa (Francafrique), and think it is their right to lord it other Cameroonians in perpetuity.

Yes, it is that twisted mindset that the anti-union-nationalists have been using to dominate others. The truth is that the anti-nationalist or pseudo civic-nationalist political elites in the Northwest and Southwest, who in reality sold out to the system are the ones fanning the divide, drawing from the immediate pre-and post-reunification/independence history of the territory west of the River Mungo (1954-1972), a period when mistakes were made, mistakes that are now haunting the political landscape in the NORTHWEST and SOUTHWEST today and may spill over into society as well. I say it is political because no matter what is heaped at the local SOUTHWEST population, the vast majority of the people there do not have an economic or social problem with the NORTHWEST or people from the NORTHWEST.  And they do not have economic, social and political problems with peoples from other provinces (Bamileké, Bassa, Mboh, Bamoun, Beti, Fulani, and Duala etc). The common folks in the NORTHWEST do not have problems with those in the SOUTHWEST either.

We sometimes tend to forget that back in the 1990s, the SDF under John Fru Ndi commanded more than 80% of the support of the people of the SOUTHWEST. Achieving that was a Herculean task, when the people of the SOUTHWEST still thought they had been taken for a ride by the KNDP during its 1959-1972 control of the government of British Southern Cameroons/West Cameroon and blamed the political leadership from the NORTHWEST for their mess, especially in translating the political dominance into economic privileges. In fact, the mess of that era still haunt both Anglophone provinces today.

In fact, I happened to be a part of the Dr. Samuel Tchwenko-led (Bamileké-led from 1990-1993) team that implanted the SDF in the SW, winning the majority loyalty of all the ethnic groups in the province. And it was a tough task convincing our indigenous SOUTHWEST brothers and sisters that Fru Ndi would be different from the Foncha-led KNDP and wouldn’t lead them down the path of treachery.  Well, Fru Ndi committed more mistakes and even sold out, turning out to be even far worse than the less-informed John Ngu Foncha.  Should we turn a blind eye to the fate suffered by the respected SOUTHWEST political figures who were in the SDF, especially those who never conciliated with the system and decried Fru Ndi’s drowning of a once historic SDF that was even looked up to by renowned anti-colonial parties in other African countries? How vocal have we been in denouncing the current mafia in the current SDF leadership?

Back in the mid-1990s, most Southwesterners denounced and even ridiculed Oben Peter Ashu’s “Come no Go” madness or diatribe, aimed at exploiting the political differences of the NORTHWEST/SOUTHWEST so as to make it a social and economic campaign against Northwesterners.  I see efforts at individual levels by unifiers from the Northwest to be hard on Northwesterners who have biases against Southwesterners. For most of my life, I have been chiding bashers from both provinces for their misguided views and have even suffered a number of times from being bundled with one group or the other and then targeted.

So, I see a better way forward when the peoples of both provinces collectively and unabashedly condemn those who in their political expressions (words or actions) are trying to create a wedge between the NORTHWEST and the SOUTHWEST in an effort to also make it an economic and social issue. And collectively, we as Cameroonians should show zero tolerance towards those who are dividing Cameroonians for economic benefits, in their political agendas that serve the interest of their foreign masters; and as a result, are impoverishing us even further.

Janvier Tchouteu                               March 03, 2013