In place of independence, France had something different to impose, “…we would do better to create an elite, beginning with the chiefs and notables who, having been made by us personally responsible for power, will progress by their experience in dealing with the difficulties they encounter and, as they become attached to their work, will win their spurs on behalf of the country and within it. Is this not better than a crowed of soured individuals bringing in unsuitable slogans from who knows where?” In Cameroon the now CPDM became the elite and the notables who were given the territory to run, and since then they have been earning “their spurs” by the “difficulties” they have encountered such as the SDF. “Clearly the French were giving notice that what they envisioned by the development of “political personality” and even “political rights” was something very different from the British model of constitutional advance from colonies constituting part of an empire to voluntary members of a commonwealth via dominion status,” writes Professor Wilson. 

In the first presidency of Charles de Gaulle he asked French experts to write up what was going to be the guiding document of French colonial control in Africa, termed Cooperation Agreements. This document was to incorporate the wishes of France in the colonies and give it a compliant look that would meet the needs of the international community for African independence. The resulting agreements demanded corporation with France in matters of importance to the colonial peoples including economic planning, trade, population movements, military and social matters. The rights of France to continue as colonial masters were therefore enshrined in a secret agreement whose content was so obnoxious and criminal that it has never been published in its entirety.

The Cooperation Agreement was first presented to Guinea to sign for their “independence.” The Guineans rejected it as blackmail. France in turn destroyed the Guinean economy to a point where telephone polls where knocked down to make it clear that France was determined to keep the reign of the past in Africa. It was a lesson meant for the rest of Francophone Africa and they learned their lesson quickly and lined up, one after the other, and accepted the Cooperation Agreements as written by French experts (as a prerequisite) for their “independence.” Cameroon signed the agreement on November 13th, 1958 and became “independent” on January 1, 1960, with Amadou Ahidjo as President.

The British orchestrated the Plebiscite to accomplish the intended goal of allowing Franco-Cameroon troops to occupy the territory of the Southern Cameroons without any constitutional arrangements. Many have described the hand over as an unconscionable act by the British, and the consequences to the people of Southern Cameroons have been disastrous, resulting in disenfranchisement, dismemberment and the people of Southern Cameroons stripped of all their rights to their resources. The parliamentary democracy that reigned in the Southern Cameroons was abolished, first by subversion where the Prime Minister, instead of taking over by virtue of a parliamentary majority, became an appointee of the president of la République du Cameroun from Yaounde. In 1972, Ahidjo moved to end the pretence in a staged referendum and in 1984 Mr. Biya ended the last pretence without any further bother to formalities. He signed a presidential decree to end the United Republic of Cameroon a la maniere française. Some have called Mr. Biya’s action treasonable because he took an oath of office to protect the United Republic of Cameroon and violated that oath of office when he abolished the Republic he swore to protect. But this is a call from the unknowing who buy the pretence of an independent Cameroon with laws that can be obeyed. 

This short political history shows that Cameroon remains a colonial dependency that makes Cameroonians nothing more than field hands suffering corruption, lawlessness, patronage and gangsterism. Cameroon is a place where there are no expectations, everything goes and survival of the fittest is the rule. Anyone who has the biggest gun or the pretence of one decides what the law of the moment will be and gets his way and life goes on without questions asked and no answers given. Vices have become virtues and victims are made out of otherwise good people on a daily bases.

This is the Cameroon that Mr. Paul Biya and the CPDM preside over. It is not a “wonderful opportunity” for Cameroonians, except those who sleep with the enemy and find ways to deny the facts on the ground. They lie to create a façade that enables them to continue a fraud that has been imposed on the people of Cameroon for a very long time. As the world has increased its demands for democracy, transparency and the respect for human rights, Paul Biya and the CPDM have toiled to create lies in order to legitimize their existence, even when they have never been able to articulate any values to the Cameroonian people or make any promises to them.      

It is from this background that the SDF was created with its origins in Bamenda, in the North West Province and with a single goal of “power to the people”. Its creation was opposed by Paul Biya who has never been subjected to a single free and fair election in his 25 year rule as a member of the CPDM, a party that planted its root in Cameroonian soil watered by a genocide whose scale has only been surpassed by the 800.0000 people killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Since that genocide, evidence has shown that the same French hands that created and planted Paul Biya and the CPDM in Cameroon caused the Rwandan genocide.