By Tapuka Jerald, Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Cameroon Journal, Limbe – Despite the backlash at every move by the Biya’s government to divide Anglophones and forestall the current strike action in Southern Cameroons, the regime continues to host day and night meetings and media propaganda to pit Anglophones against each other.
Unknown to many people in the two Anglophone regions, one of such meetings was held on February 8, when some Traditional rulers from the Littoral region crossed over the Mungo to meet with their peers of Fako Division in what the chiefs called “Sawa Reunion.”
The meeting that went unreported was recently exposed by the leader of the delegation from Douala, Chief Jean Yves Eboumbou Duala Manga Bell. In a recent interview over CRTV, he confirmed categorically that they received the blessings of the Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Rene Emmanuel Sadi to hold the meeting.
Chief Manga, who is the grandson of the famous Rudolf Duala Manga who resisted German annexation, told CRTV that the meeting was prompted by current happenings in Anglophone Cameroon and that they cannot be indifferent when the house of their brother is on fire. “You do not sleep when your brother’s house is on fire,” he said.
While answering questions about the importance of the trip in Batoke, the host village, Manga said, people from Fako, Ndian and Douala all fall under the “Grand Sawa,” that it was colonialists who separated them. Delving into the subject matter of the meeting, he said it included the Anglophone Problem and the custodian of Sawa tradition. He then lambasted those who say they are Francophones or Anglophones. According
to him, to say Anglophone or Francophone means we want to remain European as those are notions that accompanied their stay in Cameroon. Pushing further in his divide of Anglophones, Manga Bell said the South West is Sawa, while the North West is part of the “Grand West.” We speak the same language with our brothers of the South West and we are closer to them while the North West is instead closer to the West with the same tradition. I do not therefore see why we want to remain on colonial boundaries,” he pointed out.
Manga Bell, however, didn’t mention the fate of those in places like Akwaya who speak the same language with tribes in Nigeria, or the Ejagham community in Manyu whose brothers are also found in Nigeria. What about people from Adamawa state in Nigeria whose relatives are found in the Adamawa region of Cameroon? Certainly his thesis is calling for the partitioning of the entire Cameroon to neighbouring countries who identify with one tribe or the other in the Cameroon.
The interview, coming two weeks after the visit is part of government’s propaganda to downplay Anglophone unity and thwart the strike action. However, such moves have always received a backlash. The Musonge led meeting on February 2, which indicted North Westerners as the sole cause of the strike action was heavily condemned and the idea of forming vigilante groups to chase North westerners out of South West died even before the crowd could disperse from the venue.