Never has school resumption been so timid in
the predominantly English speaking North West and South West Regions of
Cameroon. It is not only the absence of school buses, assorted uniforms on
overcrowded streets and taxis but also the near complete absence of overloaded
yellow taxis and high speeding commercial motorbikes better known as okada this
September 4, 2017 from the street of Bamenda. Shops are also locked along the
streets with major markets shops closed. Inhabitants call it “kontri Sunday”!
It’s a ghost town on school reopening.
The Minister of Basic Education is in town, Alim Adjidja née Youssouf and the Secretary
General in the Ministry of Secondary Education are in town to launch the school
year. The streets are empty so they will have a good ride across the city
through near empty streets. It’s a similar picture reports from most parts of
the North West and the South West region where the Minister of Secondary
Education Jean Ernest Ngalle Bibehe Masséna is performing a similar
ritual.
Their presence only adds to the many trips
made by top ranking state functionaries including the Prime Minister Philemon
Yang demanding parents to send their children to school.
On more than one event where parents or the
population is allowed to ask questions, the request or condition for school
resumption is release of those arrested within the period October 11, 2016 to
date a period that has given rise to what is now known as the Anglophone
crisis. The crisis is born from the boycott of courts by common law lawyers
from October 11, 2016 followed by Anglophone teachers strike and the coffin
revolution on November 21, 2016. The issue here is the over bearing use of
French language and French systems in courts and schools.
As dialogue crumbled in December 2016 after
several unproductive meetings between leaders of the Anglophone teachers trade
unions and the lawyers representatives with government in special ad-hoc
committees created to handle the pre-occupations tabled by teachers and lawyers,
massive arrests will ensue from an unpopular ruling party (The Cameroon’s
People Democratic Movement, CPDM) march in Bamenda December 8 after
confrontations between government forces and the population that rejected the
march. Not fewer than three people will die this day.
The Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has
been born just a few days back as dialogue showed signs of no progress.
By January 17, 2017 internet services are
disconnected from across the concern regions. The consortium will be declared
illegal by the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization and
the leaders President Barister Agbor Balla, Secretary Dr Fotem Neba, Mancho
Bibixy leader of the coffin revolution and Ayah Paul Abineh an Anglophone
political leader amongst others will be arrested. They will each spend not
fewer than seven months in detention centers in Cameroon’s Capital Yaounde
hundreds of kilometers from their places of arrest. Other members of the
consortium, teacher’s associations, Common law lawyers and other trade unions
will also go on self-exile from where they have continued to issue decisions
leading to civil disobedience in the NW/SW regions. Shops, markets, schools,
cars and even private homes have been reduced to ashes for refusing to respect
some of these decisions which include Ghost towns.
The Teacher’s trade union called off the
strike in February of 2017 yet schools did not reopening effectively but the
2017 examination sessions will be written and the concern regions will end with
very poor results amidst claims by activists that the school year will be
declared blank! That did not happen.
August 30, 2017! Eve of school resumption for
2017/2018 academic, the President of the Republic Paul Biya orders the
discontinuance of the case against Barister Agbor Balla, Dr Fotem Neba and Ayah
Paul Abineh and others at the Yaounde Military Court but this will not include
Mancho Bibixy and 20 others. In a release August 31, The United Nation
Secretary General praised the move.
Ghost towns and school boycott has continued
with massive movement of children from the English speaking regions to other
French speaking regions in the country. Though those who give instructions in
the two regions have not made a statement to this effect, many say should the
remaining detainees be released things will return to normal.
As at now, schools have far less than
expected pupils and students with many showing up without school uniforms and
being accompanied by family; a rare phenomenon in regions where education has
been a way of life.
The future seems bilk with issues now moving
from the core issues of language use to the Form of State. While government
maintains stands on decentralized unitary state, opinions around the NW/SW
regions talk of Federalism and outright independence. This according to many
has complicated the dialogue process as a way to ending the crisis.
Tags
Politics