The plebiscite was in fact uncalled for and the alternatives presented to the people amounted to a violation of the right of all peoples to existence. A people cannot achieve independence by offering themselves for domination and their territory for annexation, by another country. The British Southern Cameroons had already achieved full self-government status and was poised for and had the right to accede to the ultimate status of independence as a sovereign state. Given this fact the plebiscite was unnecessary. The phraseology of the plebiscite question was itself a gross deception and an unconscionable fraud on an essentially illiterate population who, as the Plebiscite Commissioner rightly pointed out, may not have fully grasped the full implication of what they were invited to vote on.

Further, the UN did not present the people with the internationally recognized self-determination political status option of emergence as a sovereign independent state. There was, and there can be, no good reason why this option was withheld from the people. The very representative conference of all stakeholders held in Mamfe Town had resolved that given the UN’s insistence on a plebiscite in the territory the questions to be put to the people should be the following clear, sensible and straightforward questions: Do you want integration into Nigeria? Do you want secession from Nigeria? The British Southern Cameroons though internationally a separate territory from Nigeria was at then still administered by the UK as if it was an integral part of Nigeria. The questions therefore made great sense. There was no need bringing in French Cameroun into the equation as that country was foreign land. It was clearly understood by all the stakeholders at the Mamfe conference that a vote for secession from Nigeria would necessarily entail the emergence of the British Southern Cameroons into statehood. Mr. JN Foncha, Premier of the British Southern Cameroons, painstakingly outlined to the UN the proceedings and outcome of the Mamfe conference. But for reasons that have never been stated the UN ignored all of that and went ahead to impose an unwarranted plebiscite with vaguely framed questions and dead-end alternatives. It is still a mystery how the UN could have believed and taken the attitude that the destiny of the people of the British Southern Cameroons was necessarily tied to that of either of its two neighbours.

The Betrayal by the UK Government

As far back as 1922 the UK Government formally decided to administer British Southern Cameroons as an integral part of Eastern Nigeria. The opinion of the people was never sought as to whether or not they wished to be administered as a part of Nigeria. But the UK later claimed entitlement to administer the territory as part of Nigeria apparently in virtue of a permissible provision under the mandates/trusteeship agreements allowing for the constitution, by the colonial power, of its contiguous colonial territories into an administrative union. This administrative union of British Southern Cameroons and Nigeria had disastrous political and economic consequences for the former. The territory became a mere backwater to developments in Nigeria. It remained backward in every aspect of human development and was commonly referred to as a colony within a colony. Much of the struggle by the thirteen British Southern Cameroons parliamentarians in the Eastern Nigerian House of Assembly at Enugu focused on freeing the British Southern Cameroons from the Nigerian gridlock. There can be no doubt that had the UK administered the territory separately and directly from London rather than indirectly from Lagos as a part of Nigeria the focus of the territory’s politicians would have been on securing statehood for the territory. The albatross by way of Nigeria or Cameroun Republic would hardly have appeared on the scene.

The UK Government was well aware that a strong majority of the people of the British Southern Cameroons did not want to join either Nigeria (the Southern Cameroons having just fought and secured its separation from Nigeria) or Cameroun Republic (a strange and unknown land steep in the throes of a bloody terrorism). Yet it insisted that it was in the best interest of the British Southern Cameroons to constitutionally become a part of Nigeria, even though there was nothing palpable to show for after nearly half a century of the Nigerian connection. In fact, the UK Government actively set out to hush up the clear wish of the people for statehood. It went out of its way to prevent the emergence in the territory of any organized body of opinion in favour of independence. Sir Andrew Cohen, the UK Representative at the UN, uppity, ruthless and autocratic, sent a confidential memo to the Commissioner of the Southern Cameroons in which he declared: “I think that HMG’s position should be made abundantly clear to Foncha [Premier of the Southern Cameroons] in an effort to scotch tendencies towards the third question of outright independence.”

The UK Government peddled at the UN the economic non-viability propaganda as the excuse for its selfish opposition to the independence of British Southern Cameroons. Economic viability or non-viability had and still has nothing to do with independence for a colonial territory. Britain knew this only too well. If there was any doubt on the matter that doubt was dispelled by the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence which made it very clear that economic non-viability is irrelevant to the question of independence and cannot be used to delay it. Thus in 1960 France launched its African territories as independent states, hopping from one colonial capital to another lowering the French flag and hoisting independence flags. But hardly any of these new states were economically viable; all of them relied heavily on French subsidies. France did not make a song and dance over this.