Issue

Vol. 49 No. 4 (2024): Africa Development

4 - The Social Demands Behind the Cameroon Anglophone Crisis of 2016 and the Government’s Response

Exploring the Origins of Post-colonial Conflicts in Africa
https://doi.org/10.57054/ad.v49i4.6174
Lotsmart Fonjong
Professor and Consultant, Department of Africana Studies, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joseph Takougang
Professor and Head of the Department of Africana Studies, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Africa Development, Vol. 49 No. 4 (2024): Africa Development

Abstract

 


In 2016, some Anglophone civil society organisations and university students in Cameroon began to protest peacefully against the dominance of the French language and the Francophone system in English schools and courts. The protest was the culmination of over fifty years of frustration among those who accused the Francophone-dominated government of undermining Anglophone identity in a bicultural country that had, at independence, been a union between former British Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon. This paper posits that the Anglophone conflict is rooted both in the legacy of European colonisation in Africa and the flawed policies of the Ahidjo and Biya regimes. Both regimes manifested apparent blindness to the cherished colonial identity of Anglophones and violated protective provisions of the Federal Constitution that established the union. Although colonialism created an Anglophone minority, successive Francophone-led administrations neglected Cameroon’s biculturalism and bijuralism, leading to Anglophone marginalisation, disillusion, and protests. Current government attempts to resolve the conflict are flawed because they do not address the root structural causes of the conflict.

Keywords

Colonialism, language marginalisation, secession protest armed conflict Cameroon
[1]
Lotsmart Fonjong and Joseph Takougang 2026. 4 - The Social Demands Behind the Cameroon Anglophone Crisis of 2016 and the Government’s Response: Exploring the Origins of Post-colonial Conflicts in Africa. Africa Development. 49, 4 (Jan. 2026). DOI:https://doi.org/10.57054/ad.v49i4.6174.
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