Wirba Joseph, SDF Parliamentarian for Bui constituency this Sunday on CRTV’s ‘Press Hour’ program stated that he represents first the people of West Cameroon before the nation and that anybody who refuses them what rightfully is theirs will first have to kill him before doing so.
“I want it on record that Anglophones are not treated in this country as if they were in their own country,” he said, adding that “I represent these people and whatever it is that they want, I will represent them and defend them.”
As panelists on the program, both Hon. Wirba and John Mbah Akuro, Publisher of the weekly Timescape Journal newspaper, took on the Anglophone marginalization issue with passion. They spoke fearlessly in support of the cause of the separatists’ SCNC movement.
Wirba, arguing that Cameroon is a result of two autonomous entities that came together, rebuked Yaounde authorities for systematically relegating Cameroonians West of the Mungo to second-class citizens. He said the result has been a feeling of frustration created among English speaking Cameroonians.
Akuro corroborated Wirba’s position when he questioned why no Anglophone has occupied the post of Police boss since reunification even when the force was inherited from West Cameroon. “Why is it that even when sixty cabinet Ministers are appointed, Anglophones are given just one titular Minister?’ Mbah questioned.
As per claims that government cannot negotiate with the SCNC because it is fragmented, Akuro said it is the divide and rule tactics of the Biya administration which is struggling to give the impression that the SCNC does not have a clear and articulated objective and leadership, citing the case of opposition parties which he said government has divided and fragmented to remain in power.
The program’s host, Joe Chebonkeng Kalabubse in a very unusual moderating style, throughout the discussion allowed the panelists to exhaust their line of argument as if for once he was subscribing to the cause.
