The Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC): Conflicts and Constraints ( Introduction of a book chapter on Southern Cameroons : Upcoming)

The Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) is the administering organ of the Southern Cameroons People’s Conference (SCPC) which is a nationalist movement of the people of Southern Cameroons (SCs) who want to sever links with La Republique du Cameroun (LRC) by restoring the statehood and independence of the former. In other words these nationalists want to bring to a formal end that union which LRC has since informally withdrawn from without withdrawing from the Southern Cameroons territory, thus occupying the latter as a colonial power.

        Nationalism has a long history in the Southern Cameroons and early nationalists in the territory did much to instill statist consciousness and associated nationalism in the masses of the territory through political education in ethnic improvement unions and joint ethnic meetings organized to address petitions to the League of Nations and later the United Nations Organization against British poor administration of the territory. Indeed against more especially the British policy of governing this League of Nations mandated territory as an integral part of Eastern Nigeria.

        As political development improved in colonial Nigeria, early nationalist leaders in the Southern Cameroons created political parties, took part in the elections and led the struggle that raised the territory to a self-governing state in1954.  From that time to independence and reunification of SCs with LRC in 1961, the nationalists demonstrated a great sense of unity of purpose albeit plagued often by conflicts and constraints. The nationalism which fires SCNC today and problems which have beset it have therefore a historical precedent.

        The failure of Southern Cameroons nationalists to find national fulfillment in the union with LRC, as it was the case when the territory was governed from Eastern Region of Nigeria from 1923 to 1954, seemed to have given rise to the neo-nationalism which gained popular support among Southern Cameroonians in the 1990s and culminated in the creation of the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) in 1994. SCNC was created to coordinate the activities of the Southern Cameroons People’s Conference (SCPC) which replaced the Buea “All Anglophones Conference” (AAC) of April 1993 that sparked up this new wave of nationalism in the territory. The SCNC took leadership of this nationalist struggle with tremendous support from the masses in the territory and great optimism among its leaders.

        SCNC like past nationalist movements in this territory has had a number of internal conflicts and constraints which appear to have negatively affected its achievements. These internal problems have led to factions within the movement and although most factions recognize SCNC and work for the realization of its goal, SCNC does not coordinate the activities of all factions. Though it has since creation in 1994 been saddled with conflicts and constraints, it appears nonetheless, to have developed deep rooted resilience and as a result has done quite a lot within a very short time to raise the Southern Cameroons statist issue to a high level of recognition both at home and abroad.  

The African Slave Voice from Identity conflicts in the Bight of Biafra 1750-1950 :The Banyang of Cameroon and the Perpetuation of Slave Identity(Conference paper)

Paper Abstract:

 Slaving societies in the Bight of Biafra seemed to have grappled with slave identity conflicts for long even after the abolition of slavery. Enslaved persons in the area fought against the perpetration and use of slave identity as the basis for discrimination against them. This study focuses on slave identity conflicts among the Banyang of Cameroon who as middlemen in the slave trade between the Cameroon Grassfields and Atlantic coast at Bimbia, Rio del Rey and Calabar built a slavery system characterized by the perpetuation of slave identity for all generations of slaves. It is shown in this paper how the perpetuation of slave identity made Banyang slavery conflict prone. Slave voices as well as those of their enslavers are vividly discerned from informants’ accounts on identity conflicts in the area. Conflicts which have pitted Banyang of slave origin against indigenous ones, on political, social and economic matters, often have identity perpetration at the origin.

Deconstruction of Slave Identity in Africa. Omohundro Seminar Paper, Accra, July 2009

Paper Abstract

The word slave and its variants are constructs which were used in many traditional polities in the Africa to assign identity to individuals living in slavery.  A slave identity is a negative one and both slaves and some masters in the continent did try to deconstruct it. From narratives and other evidence collected among polities in the Cameroon Grassfields, it is clear that many masters and enslaved individuals in the area were involved in deconstruction process as a way of reducing the psychological burden of slavery. They used appellations, functions, titles and ranks which gave slaves a sense of honor, acceptability and belonging in their host societies.In societies where enslaved persons were rapidly integrated into corporate life, first generation males slaves were simply called sons or people of their owners while female ones were called daughters or  wives of their masters. However, in societies where enslaved persons were discriminated against in citizenship and corporate life, the deconstruction process was limitted but such appeared to have been the exceptions in Africa. This paper shows how  new paradigms for understanding and reinterpreting the institution of slavery in Africa could be built from the way masters handled the problem of slave identity.

The Far Hinterlands of Calabar in the Atlantic Slave trade 1700-1870 :Calabar Conference 2013

Paper Abstract: The far hinterland of Calabar discussed in this paper is found in the upper reaches of the Cross River up to the Cameroon Grassfields from where came a huge bulk of the enslaved individuals who went through the Calabar port to different parts of the Atlantic world. They came from varied ethnic entities of this region of Cameroon and the Cross River provided the common highway through which they got to Calabar. This highway channeled a tremendous number of enslaved persons varied in ethnic origins from the far and near hinterlands to Calabar. The Atlantic slave cargo from Calabar was usually one of the most ethnically diverse among cargoes from West Africa.  This paper shows how slaves from here were not always Igbo slaves as it has been erroneously claimed. It argues that importance of Calabar as slave trade port depended a lot on the cargo from its far hinterlands especially from the Cameroons. And also that a clearer record of the origins of the slaves from Calabar could help many persons of African descent in the Atlantic Diaspora who want to reconstruct the history of their origins from DNA and historical records.

European Legal Texts and Trade with the Cameroon Coastal People 1750-1890 ; Dakar Conference of 2010

Paper Abstract: The Duala and Isubu of the Cameroon coast were highly involved in the Atlantic slave trade and the slavery it engendered. To this end they signed many texts with European slave merchants aimed at regulating the trade. Though these ‘legal texts’ focused more on external slave trade they indirectly influenced internal slavery practices. While the European traders tried to protect their interest in the texts, the coastal people also endeavored to guarantee their monopoly as middlemen and control over their domestic slaves. When compelled to give up  the slave trade as seen in texts to that effect, they demanded compensations. The findings of this paper are that few texts had any considerations for the welfare of the enslaved individuals be them those to be sold to the Europeans or those the local slavers kept and who became a force that threatened their masters only after complete abolition of the external slave trade in the area.