Ernest Sumelong
28 April 2008
analysis
In the early 1990s, there existed two pressure groups in Anglophone Cameroon; the Cameroon Anglophone Movement and the All Anglophone Council, ACC, which championed the Anglophone cause and decried the marginalisation of the group.
But the AAC was more conspicuous and this movement reached its peak when it held the All Anglophone Conference at Mount Mary, Buea, from April 2-3 1993, and later in 1994 when it met again in Bamenda.
Those who championed the course and convened the All Anglophone Conference were Dr. Simon Munzu, Prof. Carlson Anyangwe, Barrister Sam Ekontang Elad and Hon. Benjamin Itoe.
At the historic conference, Ekontang was the Chairman; Francis Wache was the rapporteur, while Rev. Victor Ayuk, former Social and Cultural Adviser at the Southwest Governor's office, led the opening prayer.
The movement, at the time, acted as a pressure group that stood for the identity, dignity and preservation of the Anglophone Cameroon people and institutions. That was then; now it is another story.
One of those who were part of the political process at the time was a certain Christmas Ebini, who left Cameroon in 1994 and for the US as the first international ambassador of the Anglophone cause, according to him.
Besides government harassments and frequent detentions, Ebini, who was then a high school Economics teacher, said he felt betrayed by the idea they had when they were militating for the cause because of lack of commitment, and also because some people had personalised it and made it partisan.
"When we were doing the Anglophone movement, we were non-partisan and we respected the philosophical affiliation of every Anglophone, irrespective of where they came from. Suddenly, people who did not succeed in their political quest in the SDF came into it and became leaders and transferred their partisan politics into the Anglophone struggle.
And so it became more of a struggle between the SDF and the CPDM, which was not our original intention. I did not see what I was doing in such a movement and so I resigned from the Cameroon Anglophone Movement and the AAC," Ebini said.
Ebini's concern over the AAC corroborates what many prominent Anglophone Cameroonians, who either sympathised with the cause or actively took part in it, have said. More or less, the Anglophone struggle has systematically been subsumed into the secessionist Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, where there is a fierce battle as to what faction is the right one and who is the legitimate leader.
Even before the Mount Mary meeting, members of the AAC were invited as Anglophone members of the Constitutional Drafting Committee at the Yaounde Tripartite Meeting in 1991, but its supposed new body, the SCNC, has been tagged as an illegal group and hunted by government. Now, it seems most Anglophone Cameroonians who came to believe in the cause and looked up to the leaders at the time, are now as confused as the movement itself.
Questions surrounding the Anglophone movement are many and are still begging for answers; what has become of the movement, what has become of Rev. Ayuk's prayers and the man himself. Why are Barrister Ekontang, Hon. Itoe and Dr. Munzu silent on the cause?
All Cameroonian Cultural & Development Foundation
Meanwhile, the erstwhile AAC activist, Ebini told The Post during his recent visit to the country that he has created the All Cameroonian Cultural and Development Foundation in the US, which brings Cameroonians together and celebrates an annual cultural festival.
The foundation, he said, has created unity and is taking care of other problems the growing Cameroonian community in the Diaspora is facing. Among their numerous activities, members of the foundation contribute money for the repatriation of corpses of Cameroonians who die in the US.
"The All Cameroonian Foundation promotes culture as it brings together the different ethnic groups in Cameroon. We also carry out projects to support the health system, schools and other community projects back home. Although the foundation is not partisan, members militate in their various parties and show solidarity when things happen back home.
SDF, SCNC Discredited In US
Ebini, however, regretted that devious individuals from nowhere are in the leadership of the SDF party and the SCNC out there and are using it for business."They don't believe in the cause and have no idea of what the Anglophones are looking for, but they do it to issue fake documents.
Some of them even have offices where they do this," Ebini said.
With the foregoing situation, it is now difficult to situate anybody who truly stands for the Anglophone cause.
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