Nfon Mukete's second odyssey and student-civil associations’ role in 1961 plebiscite run-up

This time, statesman, chief, multimillionaire farmer and senator, Nfon Victor E.Mukete is in the news and political arena for the right reasons.

He is virtually alone on the political ring, telling it as it was and as it should be, since almost all of his political contemporaries (JN FONCHA, EML ENDELEY, ST MUNA, AN JUA, RJK DIBONGE, NN MBILE, VT LAINJO, PM KEMCHA, MOTOMBY WOLETA, S.A. GEORGE, JOSEPH NGU and a clutch of others) are dead.

The chief began flexing his muscles and throwing punches once more in the year 2013 when he published MY ODYSSEY: THE STORY OF CAMEROON REUNIFICATION (with authentic letters of key players). In July 2011, his compeer, the late Honourable NN Mbile, wrote CAMEROON POLITICAL STORY. MEMORIES OF AN AUTHENTIC EYE WITNESS. However, in May 2011, Linus Asong and Simon Ndeh Chi published NDEH NTUMAZAH: A CONVERSATIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

Thus, Nfon Mukete’s story should be worth its weight in gold when weighed in the balance against other witnesses. But Mukete’s narrative is a compelling read because it rhymes perfectly with the-we-were-one-and-the-whiteman-came-with-the-big-stick-and-divided-Cameroon refrain.

There were big sticks but according to Mukete, “the most vexing affair...was the splitting of Kamerun at the end of World War I, with the establishment of the Milner/Simon line...part of that line ran along the Mungo River at Mundame in Kumba Division where active uninterrupted traffic for trade, religious and social activities had taken place by kamerunians over the years...the inconvenience suffered by the people was beyond description. Some villages were split into two...”

If, as Albert Einstein remarked, “everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control,” then Mukete from birth was destined to speak for a people: Southern Cameroonians today the English speaking component of the Republic of Cameroon. Being at the right time and at the right place is not a game of chance but an unconscious partaking “to a dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”

Little is known of the significant input into the unification process by Kamerun students and the Kamerun Society in the United Kingdom, France, Nigeria and the Southern Cameroons from the late 1940s to the plebiscite of 1961. With authentic letters as well, Mukete spotlights the role he and fellow mates like B. Gwan Nulla, Teresa Sona, G.G. Dibue, Tamajong Ndumu, S.J. Epale, Michael Sabum, Godfrey Mbiwan, G.L. Monekosso, Mary Sappy, Priscillia Adewale, Margaret Pefok, Elsie Malafa, Samuel Abba, Victor Anoma Ngu and others played in the unification process including his groundbreaking meeting with Kamerunian students in France like Mpanjo Penda Felix, Priso Moulema Jacques, Ntone Felix, Ebengue Isaac, M’bock Jean, Jongwane Felix and Mandengue.

It is illuminating to note that during the first meeting of the Association of Cameroon Students of Great Britain and Ireland that held on 7 to 8 March 1951, the agenda centred on unification of British and French Cameroons and other burning issues.

Taking the cue, Kamerunian students in Nigeria formed the Ibadan Kamerun Students Association (IKSA) under Daniel Lantum, Nzo Ekangaki and others, the Kamerun Students Strategic Committee (KSSC) with Albert Mukong as Secretary and the National Union of Kamerun Students (NUKS) that under the tenure of Boniface Nasah as president, “a Pan-Kamerun Students Conference was held in Yaounde in the French Cameroons, from 27th to 30th August 1959, which was opened by the Deputy Prime Minister, Njine; The conference was attended by delegates of the National Union of Kamerun Students of France, the United Kingdom and Nigeria..”

The Conference recommended as follows, “...the conference prays that the Southern Cameroons should strive to become independent in 1960; and regarding the impending plebiscite, the Conference resolved that while allowing only indigenous Southern Cameroonians to vote, the alternative to integration in the question to be put should be secession and ultimate unification...that the two Governments of Western and Eastern Kamerun are called upon to establish as soon as possible an official committee which should help to plan for reunification and requests that a representative of each Government be allowed to sit and discuss at the Cabinet of the other.”

Earlier on, at the reconvened session of the General Assembly of the UNO on February 29, 1959, to take a final decision on the question of Kamerun reunification, NUKS under the leadership of Boniface Nasah appealed as follows:

“That the present...session...should see to the organisation and supervision of a general referendum throughout the three administrative divisions of the Kamerun on the question of reunification, that in doing this the following points should be observed (a) the referendum should be held not earlier than 1st of June...and not later than the 30th of June this year (b) only persons of Kamerun origin, that is by birth and nationality be allowed to vote...(e) the interpretation of the result with regards to the wishes of each three administrative units of Southern British Cameroons, Northern British Cameroons and French Cameroons should be left to the United Nations...That the present session...should empower its Commission...to remain in the territory immediately after the referendum to organise and conduct general election...and declare the independence of the country on the 1st of January 1960.”

The role of the Kamerun Society (KS), a pool of the intelligentsia in Southern Cameroons is of import. A correspondence dated 10th May 1959 from Isaac N. Malafa, member of the KS, to the KSSC Secretary stating that “it is not true, as has been assumed in the arguments put forward in your memorandum, that the Cameroons people want immediate reunification” by quoting extracts from the Memorandum To The UN Visiting Mission by the President of the Chief’s Conference of October 10, 1958 is most edifying because it presents an impartial account from an observer who was neither a KNDP or KNC card carrying member.

When Nfon Mukete addressed the Nigerian House of Representatives on March 26, 1957, on the future of Southern Cameroons and declared boldly, “...the attainment of independence by the Federation will mean, or will hasten the attainment, of independence by the British Cameroons which in turn will lead to the reunification of the Cameroons” he was in turn taking the Southern Cameroons through an odyssey that he is presently strenuously trying to correct by way of a second odyssey: addressing and fighting against Anglophone marginalization.