Interview

Crisis in Anglophone Cameroon:

The buck stops at  President Biya’s desk

– Prof. WillibroadDze-Ngwa

*Prof what is your take on the crisis that has been rocking the two Anglophone regions for over 7 months now?

Prof. WillibroadDze-Ngwa has researched extensively on the Anglophone problem. His Master’s & PhD

 theses were on the Anglophone problem and National Unity respectively

Thank you for coming to talk with me on the Anglophone problem which I think is a Cameroonian problem. You want me to say what I make of the crisis. Well the crisis only came to show that Cameroonians as a reunified people have some differences. The present crisis only helps to create more awareness because the problem did not start today. You may want to know that my Master’s Degree dissertation was on the Anglophone problem and that was done some 20 years ago. My PhD was on “National Unity and National Integration in Cameroon- Dreams and Realities.” So the Anglophone problem has been articulated long before now. You also recall the All Anglophone Conferences in the early 1990s and the Memorandum of Anglophones in Douala. So I should say the crisis has been there since for many years now. It has only gotten to its peak today. So I should say the current crisis has only created more awareness about the Anglophone problem and has made many more Cameroonians to know that there is an Anglophone problem in Cameroon.

*When the crisis erupted in October 2016, some government ministers dismissed it, saying there was no such thing as an Anglophone problem in Cameroon. Some said it was the agitations of a few misguided individuals who were being teleguided to revolt against the state. But President Biya later recognised the problem and promised to look into the “genuine grievances”. What was your take on this double-speak of the government about the problem?

I should say the president of the republic came in with wisdom. Without trying to throw flowers on the president, I think the president was a bit more calculative. You recall that in the 1990s during the advent of competitive politics in the country, some ministers and elite of the CPDM went all around the country marching and saying no to multiparty politics. But in his characteristic calculative style, the president came out and asked his supporters to prepare for competition. It was thesame thing that happened when the ongoing crisis erupted. While his ministers were saying there is nothing like an Anglophone problem, the president stayed mute and was calculating. Then in his end of year message on 31 December 2016 he made a fool of his ministers by recognizing the problem. The president admitted that errors had been made in our drive towards leaving together and that these errors needed to be rectified. It was only after then that some people started back-tracking and also admitting that there was an Anglophone problem, with some even apologizing for what they had said earlier. So my reading into this is very clear and it is that the one single solution that has been provided since the start of this crisis is the open recognition of the Anglophone problem by the highest authority of the country - President Paul Biya.

*President Biya has signed several decrees bearing on measures aimed at solving the crisis. He has also ordered the government to take a long line of measures in view of solving the crisis. And from the look of things the president still has much more in store for Anglophones. Reason why some people are already saying the president is somewhat of a messiah to the Anglophones. Are you also of this view?

Mr.journalist, you are pulling my leg. Biya, a messiah? to Anglophones? That is an over statement! Why is he a messiah?What has he done to deserve that sobriquet? Is he doing a favour to Anglophones? Has he giving something to the Anglophones that they dids not deserve? Are Anglophones photocopied Cameroonians?Please, please, President Biya is no messiah to Anglophones! Rather, those who think he is a messiah to Anglophones are rather insulting the Anglophones. Can you site some of the things he has done to be considered a messiah? I think the president is merely playing his role as president of all Cameroonians and as father to al the children of this land. Are you saying that if the people of say Mora in the Far North are aggrieved and the president provides a solution to their worries he would be called a messiah by the people of Mora? I think the president has done well to recognize the Anglophone problem and is doing well to progressively provide some solutions to the crisis. Bit to say that he is a messiah, I don’t think I share that view.

*Despite the “salutary measures” taken by government the crisis is still ongoing, and there seem not to be an end in sight in the near future. There are still cases of arson and armed attacks on individuals in Bamenda, while ghost town calls are also fully respected in some towns. Is this because the solutions provided are inadequate or that Anglophones are asking for too much?

Some of your questions may push me to think that you the journalist is complacent about this problem. In fact you put me off when you say Anglophones are asking for too much. I really don’t know how to answer to this. But  to attempt an answer I should say the strike is continuing because no solution has yet been provided to the crisis. We should not have solutions canalized from top to bottom. Solutions can only come through dialogue. We need representatives from both sides to sit on the table and seek what is good for the people. I also sincerely think that any concrete solution to the problem should be a legislative instrument. So long as there are no legislative dispositions and you say too much has been given to Anglophones, i say no. What have they provided? Tell me Mr. Journalist, what have they done concretely? The creation of BilingualismCommission; special recruitment of Anglophone magistrates and all that, are these what you call conceding too much to Anglophones? I say no.The   simply correcting the errors she committed and I think Cameroonians deserve an apology for this. I think they should even pay reparation to the people that they have marginalized for so long. To say that they have provided too much for Anglophones or that Anglophones are asking for too much is intellectual dishonesty. Anglophones need a fair share in governance. For example, you cannot have seven ministers in the domain of education and none is Anglophone. I think a solution to this problem can only come through frank, sincere dialogue with representatives of the Anglophones. I also think that keeping the leaders of the strike in jail is counter-productive. These people should be released. I think the first thing in the right direction is to release all those arrested in connection to the crisis, beginning from those who were arrested in Wum. The incidents in Wum are part of the crisis. The people of Wum simply manifested their discontentment at the excesses of some public administrators out there. It was the same thing the teachers and lawyers were saying. So, all these people should be released. I believe the president is wise enough to see the need to grant these people amnesty and then engage in frank dialogue.

*Some Anglophones in government have been making sustained efforts to try to get their brothers to come back to their good senses and call off the strike and civil disobedience. But these efforts appear to be futile and wasted. What is your take on that?

That is another question that if I had a way out I would not answer. What makes these Anglophones in government to think they should be the only ones to seek solutions to the problem? The Anglophone in government is powerless in first place. So they are just playing to the gallery because they don’t have the power to make any decisions. I think most of them are rather complacent to the plight of the Anglophone majority. By the way, the Anglophones in government did not call the strikes and so they cannot call for its end. I think the reading I make from the refusal of the population to listen to the people in government is that there is a deep-rooted dissatisfaction and disappointment among the Anglophone populations viz-a-viz the so called elite in government. There is total disconnect, and the masses donot identify with them.

So like I said earlier, we need concrete solutions, that is, constitutional and legislative solutions and not the half baked measures. And this is not something for the elite of the NW and SW alone to do. It is a Cameroonian problem that needs all Cameroonians to put hands on deck. And like I said before, the only single person that has the powers to solve this problem is the highest authority of the land- the President of the Republic, Paul Biya.

*Prof. you are lecturer in the mother university in the country, the University of Yaounde 1. How is this crisis articulated within the university campus or simply put,s how are your colleagues articulating the problem on campus?

Well, I would not know for sure maybe because I have not tried to do an assessment of what my colleagues think or are saying about the problem. I think I should rather urge you the journalist to go and find out what my colleagues think about the problem. But what I understand is that my colleagues all agree that the crisis is worse today than it has ever been before and the animosity among Cameroonians is growing deeper and deeper.

Prof. maybe I should put it this way. Do you feel any marginalization as an Anglophone teacher in a University with a majority Frsancophone student and teaching population?

For me, one only gets marginalized if he accepts to be marginalized. I have not accepted to be marginalized in the University milieu. But permit me to say that just every Anglophone in this country suffers some form and/or degree of marginalization, Even you as a journalist must have suffered some discrimination. I am sure your access to information is not as good as it is for your Francophone colleagues. As for me, I have always told people that it took me seven good years as lecturer in the University of Yaounde 1 to have a small sitting space that I could call an office. As president of All African Researchers in Comparative Education, I organized an international conference in Yaounde that brought the best minds around the world as far as education is concerned, But I could not get the executive members of the International Organization to be received in audience by even the Minister of Higher Education. So, the cases abound where I have experienced marginalization and discrimination. But I would not enumerate them here. But I must say that i am not ruffled by discrimination. Rather such  challenges only invigorate me and help me to forge a better cohesion and living together with my fellow brothers.

The 2017 GCE has kicked-off in the country. How do you feel about the exams taking place in the NW and SW regions in the present context and circumstances?

Well, according to state policy, students who attend  school are supposed to write their exams. But I understand that there are some candidates who may want to write even though they did not go to school. Yet, permit me to say that it is an abuse of the educational system when you compel students who did not go to school to write end of course exams. I don’t know the intentions of the government. But I think that there is some complacence that may only destroy our educational system. Unfortunately this complacency is from the Anglophones themselves. The very Anglophones who asked students not to go to school are the same people running around urging children to go and write the GCE. So who is to blame? As for me, I will not tell anybody to go and write or not to write. I leave everybody who has a conscience to do what they think is good for them. I personally have suffered and still continue to suffer from the strike action because my 10 year-old daughter was severely battered and wounded and was carried from her boarding school back to me. I have my kids and younger relatives who have not gone to school for months running. Yet today  they are forced to go and write the GCE and Common Entrance exams. I could not tell them whether to write or not to write. They should write if they can. But I think there is no genuine will to solve the current crisis. You recall that the government started by calling on students to register for these exams and when they realized that  the students were not registering, they now turned to say even those who did not register should go and write. I hear that a candidate who registered in a centre in Bamenda can write even in Yaounde. You see that we are forcing the people to do what they do not want to do. And as complacent as we are, we are keeping quiet and saying it is “their” problem. But we fail to bear in mind that all these children are Cameroonians.Yet we must not forget that whatever these children become tomorrow will depend on what we give them today. Are we sincerely honest that we want students who did not study to write the GCE and pass genuinely? What certificates do we want to issue to these students?

Prof what is your opinion about the closure of schools in NW and SW or better still, should students continue to stay at home just because of the Anglophone crisis?

It is very heart-cracking to know that students have not gone to school for several months running. And it is even more so when you imagine that they may still continue to stay at home for months to come. I think the leaders of the strike called on students not to go to school simply to draw the attention of government to the situation prevailing in that part of the country. But let me note that those who called the strike were the teachers of these students. Intriguingly, when the teachers called off their strike and asked students to come back to school, the students and their parents said no, we are not coming. So you see that the strike has been taken over by other people – the masses and the parents. You cannot urge a parent to send his child to school in a situation of insecurity. You know about the recent case in Bamenda where a young girl was butchered. So where is the security that government claims has been beefed up? So would you allow your child to go out and be butchered? So you can see that it is a serious political problem that needs well thouht out political solutions. And the solutions can only come through dialogue. It is regrettable that children are being sacrificed because of the crisis. And we should be very careful with these children who have been deprived of their education because in the next five to ten years they will replay the tape and hold us responsible for what is happening to them today. It is for this reason that I call on the government to start right now and not wait until  September, to start crafting out peace building measures. We must immediately start planting the seeds of peace in the minds of young people in the NW and SW who are not going to school. I say this because if we keep on arm-twisting parents to send their children to school and pretending that nothing is going wrong then we may only have our tears to shed in the near future.

Prof. in a response earlier on you advised the president of the republic to grant amnesty to all those arrested. So if you were to meet the president one-on-one, what will you tell him in order to convince him to free people some of whom publicly burnt the country’s flag, burnt down public buildings, disrespected state institutions, subverted the constitution and challenged the president and his office? What will you tell him to soften his mind so that he can pardon such people?

I will tell him that by virtue of his age, by virtue of his experience, by virtue of his high office and as president of the republic and head of state, he is the father of all Cameroonians including those who are in jail. And as father and head of state, it is not weakness if he forgives his children. Granted, some might have committed grievous faults that are unacceptable by him. I will also tell him that the civil disobedience and ghost towns are still respected today because he has not heeded the singular and popular call of the people for him to release these detainees. And I should say releasing these people will be wisdom on his part. But i will tell the president not to end at just releasing these people; he should also convene their leaders to a table and tell them not to do what they did again and also ask them what exactly are their grievances and frustrations and then seek solutions to them. I think that should be what I will tell the president if ever I were given the opportunity to meet him one-on-one. Yet again, I will tell him that it is not a CPDM issue and that he should get every body involved – opposition party leaders, civil society, opinion leaders and just everybody that has something to offer. All these people should be made to sit on a table and dialogue. There should be no outsiders and insiders; no superiors or inferiors among those dialoguing. I think only such frank, sincere and broad-based dialogue can bring about sustainable peace in the country.

Prof. i would like you to answer my nest question in very few words. What can be done to get students go back to school?

I think it is every body’s wish for schools to effectively resume in the NW and SW. But i think this should be only after prior conditions have been met. The government should play its role. She should find out what made students to boycott schools and then redress the issues. It it is not a matter of just saying I want students to go back to school. Teachers and parents are not stupid to ask their children to keep out of school for seven to eight months. I think that solutions should be provided. Mr. journalist like I said earlier, your questions are one-sided. I expected you to ask me if the government has done enough to warrant children to go back to school.

What last message to Cameroonians and Anglophones in particular, as we wrap-up this interview?

I have no message for Anglophones. I have a message for all Cameroonians. I don’t subscribe to this notion of Anglophones and Francophones. I think that Anglophones are not photocopied Cameroonians, they are authentic Cameroonians. If you have a pain on your left hand, it is your whole body that suffers the pain. If one Cameroonian child is not going to school it is a national issue; it is not an “us” and “they” issue, as some people want it to be. The government should solve the problems and the children will go back to school. As Cameroonians we are all equals.

NB: Professor WillibroadDze-Ngwa is a professor of history at the University of Yaounde 1. He has researched intensively and has several publcations on the Anglophone problem in Cameroon. He was interviewed at his Yaounde office by The Median’s editor, Ayukogem Steven Ojong