British Cameroon | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1916–1961 | |||||||||||
Anthem: God Save the King (1916–1952) God Save the Queen (1952–1961) | |||||||||||
Status | Mandate of the United Kingdom | ||||||||||
Capital | Buea | ||||||||||
Common languages | English (official) Duala, Oroko, Grassfields, Fula, Kanuri widely spoken | ||||||||||
Religion | Christianity (southern area) Islam (northern area) | ||||||||||
Historical era | World War I | ||||||||||
• Kamerun partitioned | 20 July 1916 | ||||||||||
1 October 1961 | |||||||||||
Area | |||||||||||
• Total | 89,526 km2 (34,566 sq mi) | ||||||||||
Currency | British West Africa pound | ||||||||||
ISO 3166 code | CM | ||||||||||
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Today part of | Cameroon Nigeria |
British Cameroon or the British Cameroons was a British mandate territory in British West Africa, formed of the Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons. Today, the Northern Cameroons forms parts of the Borno, Adamawa and Taraba states of Nigeria, [1] while the Southern Cameroons forms part of the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon. [2]
The area of present-day Cameroon was claimed by Germany as a protectorate during the "Scramble for Africa" at the end of the 19th century. The German Empire named the territory Kamerun. During World War I, French and British troops invaded the German colony Kamerun (Present day Cameroon) and decided to divide the German colony into two regions. [3] One of the regions would be French administered (French Cameroon) and the other would be British administered (British Cameroon). [3] The British were more concerned with other areas of Africa, specifically Nigeria. [3] Thus, the French gained a larger portion of Cameroon when the country was divided. [3]
During World War I, it was occupied by British, French and Belgian troops, and a later League of Nations mandate to Great Britain and France by the League of Nations in 1922. The French mandate was known as Cameroun and the British territory was administered as two areas, Northern Cameroons and Southern Cameroons . Northern Cameroons consisted of two non-contiguous sections, divided by a point where the Nigerian and Cameroun borders met. In the 1930s, most of the white population consisted of Germans, who were interned in British camps starting in June 1940. The native population of 400,000 showed little interest in volunteering for the British forces; only 3,500 men did so. [4]
When the League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946, most of the mandate territories were reclassified as United Nations trust territories, henceforth administered through the United Nations Trusteeship Council. The object of trusteeship was to prepare the lands for eventual independence. The United Nations approved the Trusteeship Agreements for British Cameroons to be governed by Britain on 6 December 1946.
Under colonial rule, Cameroon was ruled on the basis of indirect rule which allowed natives to execute judicial and executive decisions. [5] The British Cameroon used indirect rule because it meant that Cameroonians would comply willingly rather than having to coercively force compliance. [6] This was important because it gave citizens of British Cameroon autonomy and helped to establish “a greater vitality of local political institutions in West Cameroon”. [5] Despite the indirect rule used to invigorate the spirit of citizens, the British found that they had to "approach various developmental programs" because "there was little involvement of the local people in planning and executing community development programmes." [7]
In British Cameroon, European immigrants were subject to the laws of their home country while natives of Cameroon were held to customary law which was typically overseen by British administrators. [5]
The legal system established during the colonial era continues to be implemented, specifically, customary laws and the two legal systems. [5] As the community development programmes grew, there was a large delay in educational efforts because British Cameroon ". . .had no secondary school in the territory." [8] Secondary education was largely the work of missionaries such as St. Joseph College which opened in Sasse, Buea, in 1939. [8]
As French Cameroon gained independence, British Cameroon was still under the administration of Nigeria. [9] French Cameroun became independent, as Cameroun or Cameroon, on January 1, 1960, and Nigeria was scheduled for independence later that same year, which raised the question of what to do with the British territory. As colonizers of Nigeria, the British desired for the two to be united. [10] After some discussion (which had been going on since 1959), a UN-administered plebiscite was agreed to and held on 11 February 1961. The Muslim-majority Northern Area opted for union with Nigeria, and the Southern Area voted to join Cameroon. [11] No option was given for British Cameroonian independence. [12] The driving force for the unification of east and south Cameroon was Ahmadou Ahidjo and the Kamerun National Democratic Party (KNDP) as the French were not concerned because southern Cameroon did not align with the French community established. [10]
Upon reunification with French Cameroon, Anglophone Cameroonians "made up about 20% of the federal population…their French counterparts made up a majority at 80 percent." [13]
Northern Cameroons became the Sardauna Province of Northern Nigeria [14] on 1 June 1961, while Southern Cameroons became West Cameroon, a constituent state of the Federal Republic of Cameroon, later that year on 1 October 1961.
During the reunification period, the Anglophone education system began to change as Francophone teachers came to the former British Cameroon.[ citation needed ] However, because of the language barrier, the teachers would only speak in French or pidgin which hindered the educational development of students.[ citation needed ] During this period, there began to be preference and domination of the French language as English language certificates became replaced by French certificates.[ citation needed ]
Despite being united, the Anglophones in Cameroon did not feel represented in government politics. [15] In 1993, the All Anglophone Conference argued at their meeting that "the 1961 Foumban Accord. . .was hardly represented by the Francophone majority who ultimately scrapped the Federal Constitution and replaced it with a Unitary Constitution." [15] The Foumban Accord "was the basis of Cameroon’s post-independence Federal Constitution." [15]
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Its coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. Due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West Africa and Central Africa, it has been categorized as being in both camps. Cameroon's population of nearly 31 million people speak 250 native languages, in addition to the national tongues of English and French, or both. Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões, which became Cameroon in English. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate in the north in the 19th century, and various ethnic groups of the west and northwest established powerful chiefdoms and fondoms.
At the crossroads of West Africa and Central Africa, the territory of what is now Cameroon has seen human habitation since some time in the Middle Paleolithic, likely no later than 130,000 years ago. The earliest discovered archaeological evidence of humans dates from around 30,000 years ago at Shum Laka. The Bamenda highlands in western Cameroon near the border with Nigeria are the most likely origin for the Bantu peoples, whose language and culture came to dominate most of central and southern Africa between 1000 BCE and 1000 CE.
Paul Biya is a Cameroonian politician who is the second president of Cameroon since 6 November 1982, having previously been the prime minister of Cameroon from 1975 to 1982. He is the second-longest-ruling president in Africa, the longest consecutively serving current non-royal national leader in the world and the oldest head of state in the world. He is regarded as an authoritarian leader and a dictator.
Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo was a Cameroonian politician who was the first president of Cameroon, holding the office from 1960 until 1982. Ahidjo played a major role in Cameroon's independence from France as well as reuniting the French and English-speaking parts of the country. During Ahidjo's time in office, he established a centralized political system. Ahidjo established a single-party state under the Cameroon National Union (CNU) in 1966. In 1972, Ahidjo abolished the federation in favor of a unitary state.Ahidjo resigned from the presidency in 1982, and Paul Biya assumed the presidency. This was an action that was surprising to Cameroonians. Accused of being behind a coup plot against Biya in 1984, Ahidjo was sentenced to death in absentia, but he died of natural causes in 1989.
Ambazonia, alternatively the Federal Republic of Ambazonia or State of Ambazonia, is a political entity proclaimed by Anglophone separatists who are seeking independence from Cameroon. The separatists claim that Ambazonia should consist of the Northwest Region and Southwest Region of Cameroon. Since 2017, Ambazonian rebels have engaged in armed conflict with the Cameroonian military, in what is known as the Anglophone Crisis, attempted to set up a government-in-exile, and supportive militias have exerted control over parts of the claimed territory. No country has recognized Ambazonia's existence as of 2024.
The Union of the Peoples of Cameroon is a political party in Cameroon.
Articles related to Cameroon include:
The Southern Cameroons was the southern part of the British League of Nations mandate territory of the British Cameroons in West Africa. Since 1961, it has been part of the Republic of Cameroon, where it makes up the Northwest Region and Southwest Region. Since 1994, pressure groups in the territory claim there was no legal document in accordance to UNGA RES 1608(XV) paragraph 5, and are seeking to restore statehood and independence from the Republic. They renamed the British Southern Cameroons as Ambazonia.
Ruben Um Nyobè was an anti-colonialist Cameroonian leader, slain by the French army on 13 September 1958, near his natal village of Boumnyebel, in the department of Nyong-et-Kellé in the maquis Bassa.
Anglophone Cameroonians are the people of various cultural backgrounds, most of who hail from the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. These regions were formerly known as the British Southern Cameroons, being part of the League of Nations mandate and United Nations Trust Territories administered by the United Kingdom. An anglophone Cameroonian is widely regarded as anyone who has lived in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon, who has received an education from institutions modeled on the British system of education and law.
Emmanuel Mbela Lifafa Endeley, OBE was a Cameroonian politician who led Southern Cameroonian representatives out of the Eastern Nigerian House of Assembly in Enugu and negotiated the creation of the autonomous region of Southern Cameroons in 1954.
Dikwa is a town and a local government area in Borno State, Nigeria.
The postal history of the British Cameroons falls into two essential parts: the occupation of German Kamerun by Anglo-French forces in 1915, when German Colonial stamps were issued with an overprint and surcharge; and the situation following a 1961 plebiscite, after which the former British Cameroons, today known as Ambazonia, was divided between Cameroon and Nigeria.
A United Nations referendum was held in the British Cameroons on 11 February 1961 to determine whether the territory should join neighbouring Cameroon or Nigeria. This followed an earlier plebiscite in the Northern Cameroons in 1959 which voted to postpone a decision. The option of full independence was not on the ballot, having been opposed by Andrew Cohen, the UK representative to the UN Trusteeship Council, as well as African and anti-colonial delegations, notably by E. M. L. Endeley, who favoured independence by joining Nigeria, and John Ngu Foncha, who favoured independence by joining Francophone Cameroon.
French Cameroon, also known as the French Cameroons, was a French mandate territory in Central Africa. It now forms part of the independent country of Cameroon.
Augustine Ngom Jua was the prime minister of the state of West Cameroon in the Federal Republic of Cameroon from 13 May 1965 to 11 January 1968.
The Anglophone problem is a socio-political issue in the modern Republic of Cameroon, rooted in the country's German, British, and French colonial legacies. Anglophone (English-speaking) Cameroonians form a minority population of around 16 percent, mainly from the Northwest and Southwest regions that formerly constituted the Southern Cameroons, part of the former British Cameroon colonies. These Anglophone regions were formerly controlled by Britain as a mandate of the League of Nations, and then as a United Nations trust territory. During the Foumban Conference of 1961, territories with different colonial legacies were finally united into one state.
The Cameroon–Nigeria border is 1,975 km in length and runs from the tripoint with Chad in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south.
Cameroonian nationality law is regulated by the Constitution of Cameroon, as amended; the Nationality Code of Cameroon, and its revisions; and various international agreements to which the country is a signatory. These laws determine who is, or is eligible to be, a national of Cameroon. The legal means to acquire nationality, formal legal membership in a nation, differ from the domestic relationship of rights and obligations between a national and the nation, known as citizenship. Cameroonian nationality is typically obtained under the principle of jus sanguinis, i.e. by birth in Cameroon or abroad to parents with Cameroonian nationality. It can be granted to persons with an affiliation to the country, or to a permanent resident who has lived in the country for a given period of time through naturalization.
The Anglophone Crisis, an ongoing civil war between the Cameroonian state and Anglophone separatists who are trying to establish a new state called "Ambazonia", broke out due to grievances which built up within Cameroon at large and its English-speaking parts specifically over several decades.