George Ngwane

Why all Anglophones are Members of the SCNC

By Mwalimu George Ngwane*

Before and after the All Anglophone Lawyers’ Conference of 9th May 2015, claims and insinuations were linked to the real or imaginary interference of the Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC) with the deliberations and outcome of the conference. As would be expected the conveners of the conference have gone at length to dissociate themselves from SCNC control as if the SCNC was a pariah organisation.

 SCNC is a product of the All Anglophone Conference (AAC) of 1993 and 1994 that brought together different shades of Anglophone opinion to be crystallized into a common vision. It was only after the Cameroon government failed to take on board proposals by the AAC that a new pressure group emerged like it is often the case in liberation theology to give visibility, potency and geo-political relevance and space  to the Anglophone struggle.  It is here that the SCNC was born. It was no more a liberation of a people as it was for a territory that freely opted for a Union in 1961 but got short changed on 20 May 1972 with a unitary state.

Cameroon: Testament to the All Anglophone Lawyers’ Conference

By Mwalimu George Ngwane

The Post newspaper of Monday April 13 2015 carries on its major headline “All Anglophone Lawyers’ Conference to hold in Bamenda”. The date of the Conference is supposed to be “in the weeks ahead” which means sooner than later. The article further quotes the “Conveners” of the conference, Barristers Eta Bissong Jr and Harmony Bobga as saying that “the struggle of the lawyers is to preserve the Anglophone identity from being completely being wiped out” hence urging “legal practitioners to understand the current drifts in the legal system and the need for a common front”. Seen within the ambit of a professional association this move is very laudable as it seeks to consolidate the gains Anglophone lawyers made in preventing submissions in Anglophone courts to be done solely in French even if the appointment of strategic legal practitioners in Anglophone backyard is still deliberately francophonised.