Regional Councils are, nominally, the governing bodies of the regions of Cameroon. As defined by the Constitution of Cameroon, the councils have control of cultural, economic, educational, health-related, social, and sport-related issues in the regions. [1] The members of each council are delegates indirectly elected by the populace and traditional rulers selected by their peers. Each council is headed by a president, who is elected by the members from among their own ranks. Members serve five-year terms. [2]
Each council is advised by members of parliament from the area and by an administrator appointed by the President of Cameroon. [3] This individual acts at the president's personal representative and wields considerable power. [4] The president of Cameroon reserves the right to disband any regional council he so chooses. [5]
The regional councils were created by Cameroon's constitution of 1996 in response to agitation for a return to a federal system of government or increased decentralization. However, the councils have yet to be established in reality, and the regions established by the constitution are still known as provinces and are headed by presidentially appointed governors. [4]
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 27 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.
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