No one counts his marriage from the day he asked the hand of his spouse but from the day he and his spouse formally came together.

So is the difference as to the date of reunion between La République du Cameroun and the English-speaking Southern Cameroons, SC. When La République du Cameroun sought reunion with SC, the official public sign of acceptance was on February 11, 1961, when the UN conducted a plebiscite with the questions "whether to become independent by joining the Federal Republic of Nigeria or by joining the Independent Republic of Cameroon.

The reunion or marriage proper between the states of La République and SC was formally struck on October 1, the day the Anglophones became independent and joined La République. The country was formed of a federation, each state enjoying the same constitutional rights.

This explains why every year the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC, celebrates October 1 as 'Independence Day' to February 11 considered by successive regimes as reunification day.

However, this fact is widely supported in contemporary Cameroon and human rights activist, late Albert Mukong, petitioned the UN on this "deliberate misnomer of historical events."

According to SCNC activists, the successive regimes believed that celebrating October 1 as reunification day would be accrediting what has become now as the Anglophone Struggle, which late President Ahmadou Ahidjo, provoked through persistent disrespect of the Federal Constitution set up in Foumban.

Disrespect Of Constitution As Sin

The successive regimes of Ahidjo and Biya changed the federation to a unitary state in 1972 and then the Republic of Cameroon in 1984.It is known, and it is true, that even the so-called Federal Constitution otherwise known as the Foumban Accord, was an imposition of the French.

The Anglophone delegation to Foumban in 1961 came back home in the belief that there would be another final meeting to look at the constitution before adoption.

The delegation had insisted that the section on the judiciary be referred to the Southern Cameroons Bar Association for study and redrafting so as to ensure an iron-clad independent judiciary.

Surprisingly, in August the same year, an announcement was made that the constitution had been adopted by the National Assembly of La République and promulgated by its President. The Assembly of the SC was never called upon to pronounce on this constitution.

Questions such as by what legal acrobatic feat did this become law over SC, did this not imply that the UN had allowed La République to absorb the SC, provoked the Anglophone struggle.

Further on, after the plebiscite and a consequence of the consultations that continued to be held between the SC government and the government of La République through the offices of the UK government, a constitutional conference was summoned in Foumban in July 1961.

To this conference, were invited all political parties in the SC as well as some first class chiefs. From this conference, despite the many disagreements, a minimum accord was thrashed out, now generally known as the Foumban Accord.

That constitution entrenched for all times the federal nature of the union and also bore some safeguards for the English-speaking Cameroonians.Article 47 of this constitution dealt with the method of amending it: "Any proposal for the revision of the present constitution, which impairs the unity and integrity of the federation, shall be inadmissible."

It follows from this that Ahidjo's May 20, 1972 referendum was illegal because it went even to destroy the federation. Again, there was no provision for amending the constitution by referendum. Though this method looked more democratic, it was not only illegal but it was intended to undermine the interests of the Southern Cameroons.

The English-speaking people make up but 25 percent of the entire country thus, even if all of them voted against the constitutional change, if only the others voted en-masse for it they would be beaten by a sufficiently comfortable majority.

That is why the constitution did not even make mention of a referendum as one of the methods for constitutional amendments; rather clause 3 of Article 47 on the method of amending the constitution stated:

"That proposals for revision shall be adopted by simple majority vote of the members of the Federal Assembly, provided that such majority includes a majority of the representatives in the Federal Assembly of each of the Federated States."

Thus, even in those days when the Assembly had 50 members with only 10 coming from the Anglophone Cameroon; if in a vote for revision of the constitution; 44 people voted for and six Anglophones voted against it, then the amendment was defeated.

Thus, minority interests were safeguarded. It was surely to circumvent this fact that the project passed again through the National Assembly which he neatly avoided.The Federal Constitution, the original instrument of union even though it did not fully satisfy our aspirations, did all the same recognise the coming together of equal partners.

This is where the Anglophone struggle takes its genesis, subsequently carried on by through petition-writing to the UN by the late Albert Mukong and Cameroon Federalist Committee, CAMFECO, in the 1990s (based in USA) and now by SCNC activists.