Introduction

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The national unity and the stability of African states are often questioned by
international observers. Some African democracies struggle to create a single national
identity, because of the diversity of their population and their colonial heritage. Secessionism,
the withdrawal of a group from a nation-state, is a political phenomenon resulting from the
failed projects of national unity that many modern African democracies face today. There are
several examples of secessionist movements across the continent, including the
independentist claims of the Biafra region in Nigeria, the creation of Somaliland in Somalia,
and the birth of South-Sudan. These cases serve as prominent examples of how nation
building can divide a state into multiple fictive or real territorial entities.
Cameroon provides a new case of secessionist struggle in Africa. Since November
2016, this Central African country is going through a crisis linked to separatist claims.
Indeed, the movement for Ambazonia, a separatist movement from northwestern and
southwestern regions of the country is protesting the Paul Biya government to obtain the
independence of these Anglophone regions from the rest of the country. The movement is
condemning the marginalization operated by the Biyagovernment towards the English
language in sectors like education, employment, and administration. They want to make the
Anglophone regions a country named Ambazonia. The situation has escalated quickly, since
the separatists started using force. They possess weapons, and they have been held
responsible several attacks and killings in cities like Bamenda, and Douala by the
Cameroonian government. Moreover, 10 separatist leaders, including Julius AyukTabe have
been arrested by Cameroonian authorities in Abuja, Nigeria (Jeune Afrique;2018).
If the separatist issue in Cameroon caught the attention of the international observers
in 2016, the Anglophone separatist claims started in the 1990s. The discontent of the
Anglophone groups towards the Paul Biya administration expressed violently at thebeginning of the 1990s, but it has been contained for the last 20 years by clientelism, political
and bureaucratic maneuvering, repression, and shared imaginaries like nationalism.
Moreover, the popularity of the Anglophone movements decreased at the beginning of the
2000s since the CPDM, the party in power gained more popularity
(Pommerolle&Heungoup;2017).
Yet, a puzzle emerges from this fact: Why, despite the loss of popularity of the Anglophone
movement and the centralized power of the Biya regime, has the Anglophone separatist
movement reemerged and gained newfound influence in parts of the country? How has the
movement gained logistical and ideological support?
My thesis draws attention to an under-examined aspect of the secessionist struggle:
the Cameroonian diaspora and the role of the internet. This paper first argues that the
Anglophone crisis is more than an identity struggle between Anglophone/francophone
Cameroonians, but rather a conflict about historical and institutional grievances, political
competition, and regional politics involving the neighboring state of Nigeria.
Second, it verifies the hypothesis that the sustainability of the Anglophone separatist claims
relies on the important support of Cameroonians from the diaspora with the contribution of
the internet and new media of communications. According to this hypothesis, over the years,
this diaspora has contributed to strengthen the Anglophone identity and to maintain a
mobilization of Anglophone Cameroonians on the ground around the idea of an independent
republic, the republic of Ambazonia. This mobilization has been mainly led through the
internet space, especially on social media.
I explain the dynamics of the online mobilization of the separatist Anglophone movements. I
argue that this mobilization is achieved through the spreading of hate speech and
disinformation on social media platform such as Facebook. I also argue that despite an
important virtual mobilization, the Anglophone separatist movements reemerged as unstructured entities, composed of multiple armed groups that don’t necessarily cooperate.
Indeed, despite the apparent consensual mobilization around an independent republic of
Ambazonia, it is still hard to perceive any homogeneity in the political and military structure
of this separatist movement. This fragmentation among the Anglophone people make the
political negotiation with the Cameroonian government more difficult to achieve. In addition,
I analyze the perception of this mobilization by international media, by doing a content
analysis of the coverage BBC and Jeune Afrique.
My research combines interviews with Cameroonians involved and not involved in the
Anglophone struggle. My participants were political activists and former government
officers, civil society members, Cameroonian researchers. I also did a content analysis of
Anglophone separatist Facebook Groups. On each group I looked at mobilization videos,
statements, status and comments. In the final chapter, my study also explores potential
measures that have to be taken to handle the crisis. First, it suggests a strengthening of the
decentralization guaranteed by the Cameroonian constitution. Second, it encourages the
humanitarian cooperation between Cameroon and Nigeria to keep the stability of their
common border. Finally, it explains that the Anglophone crisis should also raise the
awareness of the international community about the issue of disinformation and propaganda
on the internet during conflict, which is one of our modern day’s challenge.
My research challenges the way secession has been studied by previous scholarship.
By showing the contribution of the diaspora and the internet in Cameroonian Anglophone
crisis, it shows secession as a conflict that transcends the border of the nation state. It
suggests that separatist movements have to be embedded in the globalized and digitized
world in which we live today. In other words, the Cameroonian case is interesting to this
broader separatist literature because it is an opportunity to better understand whether and how diaspora use / intervene via social media to support separatist movement, and whether and
how those strategies are effective.
Cameroon is also an important case of secessionism because it is one of the few
countries in sub-Saharan Africa to have known two colonial administrations at the same time
(French and British). This complex past, which also involves historical ties with Nigeria, has
made the process of state building and nation building difficult. This process is currently
experiencing difficulties because of the dissatisfaction of a section of the population of the
northwestern and southwestern regions vis-à-vis the Cameroonian state.