PRESS RELEASE

On behalf of the SCNC and the Southern Cameroonian people at home and abroad, I have the honour to warmly CONGRATULATE you, the Common Law Lawyers, for your successful and historic conference held in Bamenda on Saturday May, 9, 2015.

We thank the organisers for a good job and salute the courage and vision that brought the more than 700 Learned Gentlemen together. As defenders of human freedom and justice we pray you to stand like one man, firm and never bend your backs for someone to ride on.

Suffering Southern Cameroonians, victims of external historical forces, are watching and the clock of history is ticking. Let the ticking clock of positive change catch up with you solidly standing on the right side of progressive history for a better Southern Cameroons and greater humanity.

We take due cognisance of the presence and role played by the former Presidents of the Bar. Council, Bar. Eta Bisong Jr. and Bar. Sama Francis and wonder aloud what a formidable force of solidarity it would have been had their most senior former Presidents, namely, Bar. Fon Gorji Dinka, Bar, Lukes Sendze, Bar. Akere Muna, Bar. Bernard Muna, equally graced the historic gathering. By their quality of leadership they have left their marks in the sands of history.

All said and done, it is self-evident that the rise of men of law to challenge injustice done to a people is no new thing in Cameroon and other countries. It is a duty and a calling which must not be ignored and missed.

After keenly examining the resolutions of Conference as published in The Post Newspaper No. 01626 of May 11,2015, p.6, it is pertinent that we take due cognisance of certain incontrovertible facts.

We must seek to understand what has triggered this hue and cry to put things right in defense of identity in our society. From Debuntcha to Kwaja and from Ekok to Ebubu-Tombel, the evidence is overwhelming and compelling – bad faith, dishonesty, arrogance, devil-inspired discrimination, spiteful treatment, silent genocide, economic plunder, destruction of institutions of our statehood for the prestige and grandeur of la Republique du Cameroun.

With such compelling evidence, how can you, the elite of our society whose profession urges that you stand with and even descend into the abyss of the oppressed and feel their heart bit be indifferent! Indeed how can you remain silent when a most senior man of law and world icon human rights defender, Nelson Mandela declares “We must use time wisely and forever realise that the time is always ripe to do right.”

Indeed to be silent is to betray your esteemed and noble profession and above all to be guilty of the time honoured judgement of the man of God and famous human rights crusader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who said “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends” and in the case of the suffering Southern Cameroonians, our privileged brothers.

The Common Law and our educational system constitute the soul of the British Southern Cameroons nation state. Yaoundé, without blowing their triumphal trumpets believe that they have succeeded in their annexation and colonial occupation agenda and must now annihilate the soul of the once British Southern Cameroons nation to accomplish what Pierre Mesmer, the French Haute Commissaire in Yaoundé, who had the task of protecting French interest declared as the mission of Foumban, namely, the “annexation” of British Southern Cameroons to build a bilingual French-speaking African country, la Republique du Cameroun.

At the UC Congress of July 1962 in Ebolowa, President Ahmadou Ahidjo in his General Policy Speech to re-echo and confirm his master’s voice above, said;

“It being unthinkable to tamper with the republican form of the regime, it was the Republic which had to transform itself into a federation, taking into account the return to it of a part of its territory, a part possessing certain special characteristics. The question therefore was not one of the birth of new republic with a federal form.

“Bowing to this logic”, he continued, “we decided, therefore, to amend the Constitution of the 21st February 1960, since language and cultural differences needed to be given legal consideration,”

From the above quoted statement, could it be said we are serious when we talk of restoring a federation which in law never existed? Can we rationally talk of amending a constitution we were not part of, a constitution which does not reflect our identity, legitimate aspirations, our values, likes and dislikes?

Indeed the so-called 1961 Federal Constitution which was signed into law on Sept. 1, 1961, by President Ahidjo of la Republique du Cameroun, when Southern Cameroons was still a UN Trust with J. O. Field in Buea as the Commissioner and representative of HM The Queen, was pure and simple an annexation law imposed on the later nation state.

Thus when on the midnight of Sept. 30 the gendarmes armed to the teeth arrived, they came to practically enforce the annexation law proclaimed one month to termination of trusteeship on 1st Oct. 1961.

The hidden agenda Yaoundé and Paris adopted after the UNGA imposed plebiscite of Feb. 11, 1961 vote favoured a federal union with la Republique du Cameroun is being gradually but systematically executed with the expert skills of the devil. Nothing will make Yaoundé bulge from this.

To expect any change is to believe that a tamed tiger will give birth to a young tiger without the dark marks and characteristics nature of a tiger. But this tiger we know isn’t tamed.

Can we address our minds to these soul-searching questions!

1. Why did la Republique du Cameroun, France, and all French-speaking African nations, except Mali, walk out of the (powerful political) 4th Committee of the UNGA on the vote for the Independence of British Southern Cameroons on April 19, 1961?

2. Why did la Republique du Cameroun, France and all French-speaking African nations, except Mali, vote against the famous UNGA Resolution 1608 of April 21, 1961? By voting against did la Republique, backed by France, not reject forming a federation with Southern Cameroons?

3. This land mark Resolution christened the envisioned new nation – Federal United Cameroon Republic. As you rightly acknowledge in your resolutions, this UN Resolution meant to work out and adopt a treaty of union and a federal constitution was not implemented because the post plebiscite conference never held, which two state federation then do you call to be restored?

4. Should our Learned Gentlemen not have taken a judicious and hard look at why all changes in the so-called union affect only and are aimed at making British Southern Cameroons extinct?

5. Do Southern Cameroonians suffer from dependency- complex that they cannot be their own masters and shape their destiny? Why can’t we assert and defend our distinct identity?

6. Why did our learned men of law not hold firmly to the ruling of the ACHPR, Banjul, an international tribunal for the African continent that was approved by the AU Summit, but with impunity flouted by President Biya since 2009?

Though not late, we believe had they used the momentum to call on the AU to implement this ruling by forcing la Republique to the Constructive Dialogue table, failure which the AU takes the matter to ICJ or the UN, we believe the Lawyers should have been standing on the edge of revolutionary change by holding the AU to respect its own Charter, institutions and above all, the highest organ of the continental body, namely, the AU Summit, which in Libya, July 2009 approved the ruling of the ACHPR.

The Common man, a victim of Circumstances, a shadow of his true self-worth, in his limited understanding, sees the common law, his heritage, and the Napoleonic or Civil Law as light and darkness, which should exist apart or exclusively for they are incompatible.

This British Southern Cameroons common man who for more than half a century has been caged, oppressed to decapitating his humanity, exploited to the core, raped, disenfranchised to make him subservient and dependent on his slave master, has instructed me, and I am duty bound to deliver, to inform you that in Africa there are two Congos and three Guineas, and differing in colonial heritage, each, in its own inherent right enjoys and exercises sovereign independence with a seat at the AU and UN.

Like la Republique du Cameroun, Southern Cameroons is entitled to that equal right as enshrined in the UN Charter and other international instruments. The deadly disease AIDS can’t be cured with paracetamol. Remember the Gaullist dictum “la fédération c’est la sécession.”

We must remember that; i) HRH Fon Achirimbi of Bafut prophetically warned in May 1959 that Nigeria is “water” and French Cameroun is “FIRE” and that we should work for our independence! Have we not seen and lived the FIRE?

1. ii) Dr. Endeley predicted that a vote in the plebiscite for la Republique will mean no freedom and no independence because la Republique remains a province of France. Are we not individually and collectively living the hard and painful reality of no freedom and no independence but occupied?

iii) J. N. Foncha at AAC1, Buea in 1993, confessed the overwhelming limitations in his time 1961 and declared that he signed nothing, in other words, he did not sell us to la Republique du Cameroun. And to prove this beyond any reasonable doubt, he was on the delegation to New York in 1995 to petition the UN against annexation. Why then are some of us placing hurdles on the way to Southern Cameroons freedom and independence? Lessons from Eritrea, East Timor, Namibia, etc., are there to inspire and cheer us to the council of free people and free nations.

1. iv) E. T. Egbe, the first Southern Cameroonian lawyer, before his passing unto eternity, declared that there is no legal instrument binding British Southern Cameroons and la Republique du Cameroun.

This has been confirmed by la Republique historians and constitutional expert, Prof. Magloire Ondoua at forum organised and chaired by the Director of the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency of la Republique, Monsieur Martin Belinga Eboutou in Yaoundé.

Most convincingly and from an international perspective, during the 50 anniversary celebration of the independence of la Republique du Cameroun in Yaoundé, the UN via the President of the 64th Session offered President Paul Biya a historic gift of a uniquely framed map of his country, la Republique du Cameroun, at independence Jan. 1, 1960 and on joining UN Membership, Sept. 20, 1960.

And to demonstrate their seriousness, a distinct similar framed map of Southern Cameroons, was equally presented to him same time. Boundaries inherited at independence are inviolate and immutable.

Finally, as we heartily congratulate the Common Law Lawyers for courageously setting the pace, we pray that we all take due cognisance of the good spirit and intention and support and encourage them not to relent. We equally call on other groups, TAC, CATTU, the Commonwealth Journalists, among others, to support the Lawyers by taking their cue and defending what belongs to us all, the heritage, that makes us distinct from la Republique du Cameroun citizens.

It is our historic duty and inherent right. And as we take off from our diverse points, we must be nationalistic, patriotic, focused and in synergy converge on the ultimate goal-SOVEREIGN INDEPENDENCE.

Neither the Common Law nor the Educational system belongs to a class or group: it is our heritage, the soul, the staying worthy value and identity card of the British Southern Cameroons nation which we must, as a people cherish, nourish, preserve, promote, and pass on to our descendants. We must therefore in solidarity say NO TO ASSIMILATION! And NO TO HARMONISATION!

The great USA President and statesman, Abraham Lincoln, himself a Lawyer, declares, “A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.” And the Southern Cameroonian suffering masses hold to their heart and tell the Southern Cameroonian Lawyer, Journalist, Teacher, Intellectual, Political elite, Business elite, Religious leader, Traditional Ruler, student, you are our brother/sister if you feel like we feel and thus irrevocably committed to the freedom and independence of Southern Cameroons.

The restoration of BRITISH SOUTHERN CAMEROONS STATEHOOD IS NON NEGOTIABLE! Together in solidarity we must MAKE not mar! FOR and on behalf of the SCNC, NFOR NGALA NFOR National Chairman, (SCNC)