Cameroon: PM Chairs Decentralisation Board Meeting Amid Calls For Federalism, “Restoration” Of The Sate Of Sourthern Cameroons

Prime Minister Philemon Yang is presiding over an extraordinary meeting of the National Decentralisation Board in Yaounde.

The announcement was made on Monday in a release from the Prime Minister’s Office.

The council brings together ministers, parliamentarians, magistrates and other high profile persons in the country.

The so-called extraordinary meeting is coming at a time when the political atmosphere in Cameroon is growing tenser and tenser.

In the wake of the unrest in West Cameroon, there have been persistent calls for the reinstatement of the federal system of government “unduly” wiped out by the former Ahidjo regime in 1972.

There have also been more radical voices demanding a restoration of statehood for Southern Cameroons aka Ambazonia.  

But the central machinery in Yaounde is “unshakable” in the face of the calls. Instead, it is looking up desperately to increasing the decentralization of the nation, which it has always considered “ultra-decentralised”.

The machinery in Yaounde is very notorious for evading facts and hitting the nail on wrong heads.

What form of decentralization can be more important than federalism in a country with such diverse backgrounds?

Cameroon is one and indivisible, they say. Is Cameroon more “united” than the USA, the UK or Germany? Certainly, there is something the regime is trying to conceal.

What else is PM Yang going to tell Cameroonians on Tuesday?

Cameroon has always been a “decentralized” State. Yet everything is in Yaounde.