Kudos to Anglophone teachers

Recent news headlines have been announcing the victory scored by Anglophone teachers represented by their trade union leaders, in a tussle pitting them with the Ministries of Secondary and Higher Education.

These two Ministries were forming hybrid Cameroonians by getting students of Francophone origin to train as teachers in the Anglophone Teachers Training Colleges, then forcing them to become permanent teachers in Anglophone secondary schools – a simple way of erasing Anglophones completely.

This is a terribly disastrous way to implement both the Constitution of this country as well as the 1998 Education Law. Both of these documents have their inherent flaws, which must be corrected, yet the Government is using more of scheming and expediency to implement provisions in both of them. The teachers were able to get the Government to withdraw those hybrids from Anglophone schools.

By forcing Francophones to study in Anglophone schools, this Government believes that it will soon use these Francophones to replace Anglophones in all walks of life, thus erasing the Southern Cameroons factor in this country. That way, the assimilation effort would be complete.

The danger of such a scheme lies in its lose-lose outcome. No Cameroonian can ever benefit from such a malevolent and destructive way of ruling a country which is so richly endowed. Already, the fate of those Francophone students who were to undergo teaching practice as part of their study programme and who have now been put off, is on the balance. What is their academic (and even social) future?

These are the hybrids who, at one stage, must define themselves in a bicultural Cameroon. The Anglophones who were to be taught by these Francophones are also losers, because, they were going to be taught by teachers whose educational background (culture) is hybrid.

The bicultural option of this country is a lofty idea but if its implementation continues to be hinged on the whims and caprices of the Francophones, it will produce no benefit for anyone; instead, it is a recipe for conflict.

This country has two education cultures: Anglophone and Francophone. And both are to co-exist; the 1998 Education Law states that clearly. But the Government ignores this provision and proceeds to destroy the future of young Cameroonians by implementing it with partiality and bias.

The Anglophones who are taught by Francophones who do not master the education culture (because they were not born in it), nor the subject they teach, nor the language of instruction; as well as the Francophones who cannot progress in their career because they are working in the wrong educational culture and who, unfortunately, now have been laid off, are all losers.

But who is responsible for this mess, apart from the Francophone Government of Mr. Paul Biya? Therefore, all those Francophone parents who are heeding the atrocity of this Government by sending their children to flood Anglophone schools should know that a similar fate will stare them one day in the face. And any Anglophone parent who allows this atrocity to continue is a partner in crime with this Government.

If educational experts analyse the material and human cost of these expensive jokes which they have been wrecking on this country, any buyam-sellammami in Fiango market will cry and curse this regime. The damage they have caused Anglophones by systematically eroding and dismantling their educational systems and structure make them targets for criminal prosecution. Isn’t there a law stating that anybody who, in implementing the law, does so badly ought to be tried and sentenced? Common Law lawyers, are you there?

The Francophones are struggling very hard to make even Anglophones believe that anybody who speaks English in this country is Anglophone – the hope again, being to eliminate any sentiment of the Southern Cameroons aspiration. This is one of those many falsehoods which the Biya regime thinks it can hoodwink everybody with.

What many people don’t know is that the Francophones of this country consider the Southern Cameroon as “notre petit cadeau de la Reigne” (our small gift from the Queen). So, the bilingual policy of this country is no longer a lofty social tool but a gimmick meant to stir up the mud in the water, making it dirty for everybody.

This can be seen in the cavalier attitude with which they treat Anglophones and their institutions – like a master to his servant. They should know that the 1972 Referendum was a capital fraud; that the proclamation of Mr. Paul Biya as the winner in the 1992 presidential election was another gigantic fraud; that the 2014 celebration of a fad called reunification was another expensive fraud; and so on.

It is clear that Mr.Biya inherited the political sin of annexation and annihilation of the Southern Cameroons from Ahidjo, his predecessor, and has further complicated it with his own crimes, deceits and frauds; but to base a country’s foundations on such alarming falsehoods and fraud is unfortunate. This compromises the country’s ultimate destiny, and those who are charged with the country’s stewardship must account for it.

Probably that is why it is they who populate the Kondengui maximum prison. That prison is clearly only just waiting for a certain particular occupant to complete its roll call.