Opinion leaders disagree over celebration of May 20 by Anglophones

Cameroonians will on Friday May 20, celebrate the 44th National Day under the theme: “Defence forces and the dynamic forces of the nation standing together to combat terrorism and preserve peace and territorial integrity.”

Past celebrations of the national day on May 20 have met with lots of controversies. Political scientists say a national day is a designated date set aside to celebrate the nationhood of a nation, usually the date of independence or becoming a republic.

The choice of May 20 for Cameroon as a national day has often been criticized, with a major question being whether Anglophone Cameroonians should mourn or celebrate the day. While some opinion leaders are of the stance that Anglophones shouldn’t mourn but celebrate, another school of thought holds that the whole idea of May 20 as national day is a sham.

Elvis Ngolle Ngolle, Political Scientist and Former Minister, holds that Anglophones have every reason to celebrate the national day because they are 100% Cameroonians and have the right to benefit from everything the country has. “Anglophones have no reason to make themselves feel somehow. We were Cameroonians before, were born Cameroonians and we should remain as Cameroonians,” he told The Cameroon Journal.

However, a Bamenda-based lawyer, Barrister Bobga Harmony, sees no meaning in the day. According to Bobga, Anglophones don’t have any business celebrating it because the date of the celebration has no legal bases. Bobga thinks Anglophone politicians who take part in the celebration are “political prostitutes.”

The first class traditional ruler of Mankon, Fon Angwafor III is rather of the opinion that Cameroonians have to make do with May 20 as national day as long as the date has not yet been changed. He, however, advanced that there is no reason for the date to be changed. “We fought to create Cameroon as a nation. The UN gave us the opportunity and we voted to become one,” Fon Angwafor III affirmed.

International legal consultant and peace crusader, Nico Halle outrightly would not rule out May 20 as national day. “It is our national day. The world is now a global village. Cameroon is much bigger, remains united and together. Unity is strength. Our national unity and national integration is ongoing, that is why you can see all Cameroonians are together fighting Boko Haram,” Halle said.

Notwithstanding, he posits that “the setback for the total unity and integration is the Anglophone marginalization in the setup. They only play second fiddle in the socio-cultural and political life of the nation. Much still has to be done to recognize minority rights.”

He added that Cameroonians will only have the right to celebrate in pomp and pageantry when love and patriotism must have been built amongst Cameroonians.

To Prof. Tazoacha Asonganyi, a social critic, the National Day celebration on May 20 should simply be scrapped because it is not necessary. Asonganyi insists he will never celebrate any national day on May 20. He rather suggests October 1 as national day.

Though admitting that May 20 as national day still carries controversy between Anglophones and Francophones concerning its legitimacy, another political scientist, critic and lecturer at the University Yaounde II, Prof. Owona Nguini, avers that the day should be celebrated since it has been chosen as national day.

Nonetheless, Ayah Paul Abine, one of the advocates general of the Supreme Court and chairman of the Popular Action Party, PAP, says “there is unanimity today among Camerounese and Cameroonians that Cameroonians are not legally part of the contemporary Cameroun. This is evident in the one momentous fact that if it were otherwise, the national day would be the first of October and never May 20.”

On whether Cameroonians should rejoice or mourn over May20 ceremony, Ayah notes that “no one people are stateless.”

“We are as of now in a de facto dispensation that warrants our presence consistently with a global conspectus. That seems to coincide with the fact that ecstasy during rape does not obliterate the offence of rape. Wisdom may not admit that we dispense with our threadbare jumpers before the better wear has been procured” the magistrate said.

Just like Ayah, renowned legal luminary and former UN envoy, Barrister Ben Muna, considers the celebration of May 20 as meaningless when it is not put into the context of February 11, 1961, and October 1, 1961. “Without the 11th of February 1961 and the 1st of October 1961, we would not have had 20th of May. I really regret the falsification of these two important dates,” Ben Muna worried.

Another opinion leader who doesn’t see any reason for Anglophones to celebrate May 20 is Edith Kah Walla, firebrand leader of the Cameroon People’s Party, CPP. She advances that Anglophones in Cameroon have to collectively and constructively make their voices heard in the country. “They sit in their houses and individually grumble in their rooms. We will like to see Anglophones come out in black on Friday (May 20) and present their plight,” she stated.

CPP will be organizing her routine Black Friday this May 20 and one of the themes will be: “The Anglophone problem in Cameroon,” she said.

Though it is difficult for opinion leaders to agree on the subject, as the debate moves on, what remains certain is that the national day celebration will be observed across that national territory tomorrow, with the South West and North West regions reported to be set for the celebration too, their grumblings notwithstanding.