July 19, 2021 –
According to the Government effectiveness index in 2019, Cameroon was rank 154/192 counties evaluated, with an index of – 0.81 for the highest of 2.22 (Singapore). Indeed, such an index reflects abysmal governance, including politically, which can even be corroborated by the Corruption Perception Index (CPI)of 25, in 2020, with the highest at 88 (New Zealand). According to the CPI, Cameroon is the thirtieth most corrupted country in the world. With a political environment that has been around, with the same President for almost 40 years, all indicators are on red as far as good governance is concerned. However, that state of the matter can only be understood if one looks at historical data. The state of governance in Cameroon today results from a pre-colonial system, a colonial system, and two post-colonial systems, with the specificity of Cameroon itself being divided into French and English-speaking regions.
Analyzing governance practices of Cameroon from when the country was a colony back in 1884 to when it became an independent state in 1961 involves the analysis of the transitional period itself and the various factors, which stimulated the rise of nationalism in the country. It is essential to note that the government had been a German colony at different times in its colonial history and British and French mandates of the League of Nations and then as trusteeship territories of the United Nations Organization. Understanding those dynamics and the political and economic policies of the colonizing powers is crucial since they were the determining factors that conditioned the country’s destiny in terms of governance.
The Brazzaville Conference (January 30 – February 8, 1944)
The Brazzaville Conference, AKA Conference de Brazzaville, was held by French officials in 1944. That conference set the bases of the French way of ruling in the colonies and territories they administered. The conference recommended political, social, and economic reforms. It led to the agreement on the Brazzaville Declaration, and those recommendations were the socle of the governance system used in those countries. This conference was held not only to make it clear to Germany and the whole world that France was still in control of her colonies but also to coordinate the political and economic developments of the French African colonies. Politically, this conference made it clear that French African colonies were attached to the metropolitan French, including with its governance methods. African countries were so in sync with the Paris administration that, for instance, they were expected to send people to represent them in the French assemblies and to help in drawing up the constitution of the 4th French Republic of 1946.
Two Governance systems – French & English
As many African territories before independence, Cameroon was just a territory not identified with a particular nation-state. After the first World War in 1919, when the Germans lost Cameroon, one of the four colonies the Germans had on the Continent, Cameroon was partitioned with English Cameroon being governed out of Eastern Nigeria, and French Cameroon considered as part of French Equatorial Africa. Then on January 1, 1960, the French-speaking part of Cameroon governed by the French as part of French Equatorial Africa got its independence on January 1, 1960.
On October 1, 1961, the English-speaking part of Cameroon joined the French-speaking region, resulting in merging two different governing systems inherited from respectively England and France. When Nigeria was getting its independence, the English-speaking part of Cameroon, back then, AKA Southern Cameroons, was given the possibility to become independent as part of Nigeria or rejoin the French-speaking part of Cameroon, which obtained its independence in 1960. Southern Cameroons’s citizens chose to join French Cameroon to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon in 1961 in a Cameroonian city called Foumban. Both parties agreed on their joint constitution to maintain both sides’ cultural identities. If the President of the country were from one side, then the Vice President/Prime Minister would be from the other side of the country. Therefore, a President was from francophone Cameroon and a Vice President at that time from Anglophone Cameroon.
Internal Governance Crisis and the Need for Good Governance
In discussing internal governance, it is imperative to examine the nature of the colonial policy inherited and prepare poor governance in Cameroon. The two regimes that have ruled Cameroon since independence inherited distinct ways of governance. The independence era was emailed progressively with the appearance of a new governing practice related to the absence of democracy.
With the advent of democracy, governance challenges increased with the longevity of a unique regime still in power. In 1992, Cameroon went through the first multi-party elections, competitive elections, which were won by the current President, which was controversial because the candidate who came in second claimed that he had won the election. It just so happened that that candidate was an Anglophone Cameroonian. The colonial concepts were inherited through these systems, exacerbated by the unique ruling party-initiated inequality, injustice, and prejudice implemented based on cultural differences and other class principles. In all, these principles were contrary to the canons of the good governance debate. That mixt system exacerbated favoritism and poverty because those who were co-opted into the neo-patrimonial system considered the country’s wealth as theirs, and the masses were abandoned to languish in poverty. Since Cameroon’s independence, that mixt system has unconsciously presented the plight of the masses or dominated groups as passive. It overestimates or exaggerates the integrationist’s virtues of the government based on the values of clientelism.
The above contributes to explain poor governance indicators, which are the results of exacerbated corruption practices and a high level of poverty and corruption in the country. Those who are cheated by this kind of governance system will always clamor for improving the governance structure. This prejudiced administrative machinery has eaten deep into the fabric of the society and is manifested in any small nucleus of the state department.
To be continued ….
Reviewed by Dr. Marie Mbaga
© Africa Innovative Development – Think-Tank