Cameroon History To Independence
Cameroon History: Rebellion, freedom, and reunification all happened at the same time and led to the creation of modern Cameroon, which speaks two languages. In 1955, someone rose up in French Cameroon. The Union des Populations du Cameroun (UPC) led the uprising, which turned into a bloody guerrilla war that lasted right into the postcolonial era.
France chose not to use the trusteeship system in Cameroon because they wanted to treat the country like any other foreign colony. The UN Charter laid out the political goals of the trusteeship system in Article 76(b). These goals were to help trusting areas like Cameroon and Togo move toward self-government and independence.
France didn’t follow this process and instead added Cameroon to the French Union, which was in line with its colonial policy of making a “Greater France.” On April 10, 1948, the UPC came into existence. Its secretary general, Reuben Um Nyobe, led the party to adopt a radical nationalist platform that called for instant independence and reunion with the British Cameroons.
The French were angry about this kind of program because it went against their strategy of integrating colonies after World War II. The UPC made things even worse for the French by connecting with the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, which is a branch of the French Communist Party.
It was now time for France and the UPC to play tug-of-war. This led to constant harassment and discrimination against the UPC. The UPC faced arrests and threats, preventing its members from winning any local elections. In response, the UPC held a series of violent protests in May 1955 to try to get the French out of Cameroon.
At the end of the month, the colonial government restored order after 26 deaths and 176 injuries. The French government banned the UPC on July 13, 1955. Because of this, there was a long-lasting rebellion from 1955 to 1971. It started in Basaland and ended in Bamileke country. The French Cameroons had to become independent because of changes in the area and around the world.
Moderate Cameroon nationalism slowly adopted the UPC’s ideas, and France came under more and more pressure from around the world, especially from the anticolonial bloc in the UN, to make changes to Cameroon’s government. It was also because France lost Indochina that they had to give freedom to the Associated States of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in 1954, as well as to Morocco and Tunisia in 1956.
These concessions indicated that a significant issue could arise in French Sub-Saharan Africa if the law did not undergo swift changes. So, on June 23, 1956, the French parliament passed the Loi-cadre (Enabling Act), which made it possible for the country to have its own government. Cameroon had to hold new elections on December 23, 1956, because of the Loi- Cadre.
The UPC nationalists refrained from participating in the last elections before independence due to their party’s continued ban. Without the UPC, it was only natural for such an election to lead to the formation of a mostly moderate and pro-French assembly. The assembly chose Andre-Marie Mbida, leader of the Démocrates Camerounais, on May 15, 1957, and the French high commissioner made him prime minister.
The government punished Mbida and removed him from office on February 17, 1958, due to his strong opposition to independence and reunification. Ahmadou Ahidjo, who took over after him, was smart to follow the trend of the time by publicly supporting the nationalist goals of independence and reunification, and France agreed.
The French government declared the independence of the French Cameroons on January 1, 1960, in front of Dag Hammerskjold, who was Secretary-General of the UN. They named Ahidjo as the first prime minister. In a strange turn of events, the UPC, which fought and died for freedom, did not end up benefiting from it. The French Cameroons got their freedom in 1960, and in 1961, they joined back up with the British Southern Cameroons.
Reunification was the dream, the fight, and the attempt to bring German Cameroon back within the borders it had from 1884 to 1916. People wanted to bring the British and French Cameroons back together because they had both lived as colonies in Germany.
The Anglo-French partition painfully split up families and ethnic groups living on the frontier, and later efforts by Britain and France to limit the area between their countries only made things worse. During the years between the wars, educated Cameroonians sent pleas against the division of their country. But it wasn’t until after World War II that the idea of a reunion became popular and was pushed hard.
The UPC pushed for unity hard, and French Cameroonian exiles spread the idea in British Cameroon. The UPC was aware of French colonial despotism and France’s unwillingness to help the region move towards self-government. The UPC believed that by incorporating reunification into their political platform, they could find a way to help the French Cameroons get ahead in the UN. Dr. E. M. L. Endeley was the first well-known British Cameroonian who worked to unite the country.
Endeley’s Cameroon National Federation met with the UN Visiting Mission for the first time in December 1949. They spoke out against the British colonial system of running the British Cameroons as an extension of Nigeria and asked for the union of the two Cameroons.
Endeley started the Cameroon National Congress in 1953 so that the country could fight for its freedom.
In 1954, Britain gave the Southern Cameroons a semi-independent regional position within the Nigerian federation, and Endeley began to back away from reunification. John Ngu Foncha led reunificationists who left Endeley and started the Kamerun National Democratic Party in 1955. Its stated goals were to break away from Nigeria and reunite with the rest of the country.
On February 11, 1961, in the Southern Cameroons, and on February 12, 1961, in the North Cameroons, the UN held plebiscites to decide the political future of the British Cameroons.
With 235,571 votes to 97,741 votes, the Southern Cameroons easily chose to rejoin Nigeria, while the Northern Cameroons chose to stay in Nigeria. The Southern Cameroons gained their freedom on October 1, 1961, when they returned to the independent Republic of Cameroon.
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