Abstract

The 1996 Cameroon Constitution aimed to create  a decentralized system of government that would  include  a variety of communities, but the nation currently faces a number of major governance challenges that the Constitution has not yet been able to address. These include challenges related to the nation’s dual-state colonial background, particularly the Anglophone community’s perception of marginalization. The adoption of constitutionalism, addressing minority issues like women’s and indigenous peoples’ rights, reducing interethnic conflict, and managing the shift from authoritarian to democratic rule are among the other obstacles. The 1996 Constitution’s decentralization framework from a legal and constitutional perspective reveals that these problems have not been satisfactorily handled by the current system. In order to offer a more effective decentralized framework for administrative, political, and budgetary decentralization, there is a need for a fundamental constitutional revision.

CHAPTER ONE

• GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The elaborate entrenchment of provisions on decentralisation in African constitutions is usually associated with Anglophone African countries such as South Africa and Kenya. Nonetheless, this is gradually being adopted in civilian-style or Francophone constitutions like those of Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Entrenching decentralisation in constitutions, especially that of Cameroon, is important in peace-building and development efforts. To appreciate the present system of decentralisation under the 1996 Constitution of Cameroon (the Constitution), it is necessary to briefly look at the historical background of how the system was established and how it has evolved. A more detailed historical background is done in The background to the study.

1.1. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The present-day Cameroon as well as some parts of its neighbours, was a result of the Berlin Conference of 1884, when it was declared a colony of Germany with the name “Kamerun.” It was a German colony until a combined French and British military contingent conquered the German army in Cameroon in 1916 during the First World War and carved out the territory into two. The French took the larger part made up of about four-fifths of the territory, while the British took two small-disconnected parts, which they labelled Southern and Northern Cameroon respectively. This partition was later on acknowledged by the League of Nations and its successor the United Nations (UN). The French administered its position via direct rule while Britain effectively governed its two disconnected segments as simply parts of its next door Nigerian colony. However, under a plebiscite which was conducted by the UN on 11 February 1961, the Northern Cameroons decided to remain and is today part of the Federation of Nigeria, while the Southern Cameroons voted in favour of joining the former French Cameroon which had already gained its independence as the Republic of Cameroon on 1 January 1960.

After the plebiscite which took place in Southern Cameroons, the Southern Cameroonian delegation, struggled to arrive at a new constitutional arrangement with Ahmadou Ahidjo, the then President of the Republic of Cameroon. This constitutional arrangement was to put in place a fairly loose and decentralised federation. The negotiating power of the Southern Cameroonians may have been very weak which led President Ahidjo to make some concessions from their proposals by simply amending the 1960 Constitution by an annexure termed ‘transitional and special dispositions’. This happened because the Southern Cameroonian delegation may have been politically inexperienced as compared to their francophone counterparts who had the assistance from French constitutional law experts. In actual fact what became the Federal Constitution of the Federal Republic of Cameroon was simply a law revising the Republic of Cameroon’s Constitution of 4 March 1960. The reunification did not only bring together people of different backgrounds inherited from the English and the French but also a multitude of about 250 ethnic groups with over 270 various languages. Faced with such a mixture of cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups having various aspirations and interests, at independence, the then government needed to set up an institutional framework to manage diversity under an umbrella of unity, particularly between Anglophone and Francophone Cameroonians. Apparently diversity was not adequately managed under the 1961 Federal Constitution as well as under the 1972 Unitary Constitution. Anglophone Cameroonians have not again adequately benefited from the autonomy which was envisaged under this unity under the Constitution. It was expected that the Constitution would furnish a much-needed framework for promoting the rule of law and constitutionalism by enhancing good governance and democracy, curbing ethnic tensions, and finding a solution to the Anglophone problem, amongst other things. Most research that has compared the Cameroon Constitution to recently revised constitutions or new ones clearly shows, however, that it has done nothing more than simply strengthen the philosophy of the original 1972 Constitution as well as several of its underlying principles. There are several reasons that attest to this.