Tchiroma dismisses anglophone problem

Government has, for all the unmistakable handwriting on the wall, dismissed the Anglophone problem that has seen periodic calls, reminders and demonstrations for it to be addressed.

The Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakari, at a press conference held December 10, in Yaounde, applied all sorts of negative adjectives to describe the on-going violence in the Northwest and Southwest Regions.

Tchiroma Bakari qualified the on-going strike actions as “acts of vandalism, insurgency, uncivil behaviour, destructive madness, lack of patriotism, etc”.

The Minister blamed the current subject on “manipulation by someone who wants to destabilise the land of John Ngu Foncha, a one and indivisible Cameroon, land of legendary hospitality and peace”.

This position tickled The Post’s Kini Nsom who asked Tchiroma to explain why the Government has never called for dialogue with the Southern Cameroon’s National Council (SCNC), to really get their problem since they are the ones preoccupied with the Southern Cameroons issue.

In response, Tchiroma rather saw in front of him a man of bad faith who was talking about an insurgency group that wants to divide the country into two like it is the case with the Boko Haram terrorist sect.

Tchiroma said Government therefore, needs to use the same approach used on Boko Haram to fight the SCNC who represents nothing but an illegal movement and a threat to national unity.

He questioned why the CPDM rally caused commotion in Bamenda, meanwhile a similar event of the SDF had previously taken place in Buea in ‘all tranquility’.

Allain Belibi, the moderator of the press conference, also asked the Minister why the Government keeps on saying that there is no Anglophone problem in Cameroon, yet the matter keeps on resurfacing every now and then.

Tchiroma virtually waved off the question by saying the protesters “are simply people who are imposing their own view on the State.”

He further said the issue of marginalisation being raised by the protesting Regions was not real because other Regions of the country face similar problems.

Considering the two-sided nature of Cameroon’s main cultural systems (English and French), which seems to be the root of the problem, many wonder whether there can be smoke without fire.