Futile and Confusing Initiative

In response to these pressures Endeley suggested that both his own Cameroon People's National Congress (CPNC) and the KNDP abandon the plebiscite and their separate programmes and request the UN to grant Southern Cameroons independence in its own right. For his part, the Commissioner for the Cameroons advised the leaders of the political parties to meet with Ahidjo as a team and discuss the terms of Reunification before deciding whether or not they accepted the plebiscite. Foncha, however, ignored Endeley's suggestion and the Commissioner's advice and decided to negotiate the terms of Reunification alone with Ahidjo.

The first negotiations took place in Yaoundé in early 1960 when Foncha advocated a loose form of federation which Ahidjo 'turned down out of hand' (Levine 1961: 4). Foncha then returned home to face the CPNC charge that, in the event of Reunification, the new state would become a member of the French Community. This was repugnant to the Southern Cameroonians including the diehard supporters of Reunification. Indeed the only unflinching advocate of Reunification in the territory, the One Kamerun (OK) party, declared that it favoured a Republic which would be entirely cut off from any political association with the Colonial powers.

Faced with this situation, and anxious to reach agreement on all outstanding issues, Foncha once more arranged to meet with Ahidjo. During the talks in Douala, he advocated the eventual setting up of a Cameroon Federation 'outside the Commonwealth and the French Community'. This idea seemed acceptable to Ahidjo and both parties agreed to establish a United Democratic Federal Republic of Cameroon which would in no case be a part either of the French Community or the Commonwealth.

Yet there was no precise indication as to the actual nature of the would-be federation and the CPNC charged that the federation would have a strong central government. This was unacceptable to the Southern Cameroonians. Foncha, with the collaboration of the British, organized a conference which took place in London in November 1960. In the course of the discussions it was stated by the British delegation at the UN that the idea of an independent Southern Cameroons state would not be acceptable to the Afro-Asian states at the UN.

Thereafter, the talks focused on the implication of the second choice in the plebiscite. On that issue, Foncha tried to persuade the British government to agree to interpret a vote in favour of '[Re]unification as one which implied a preparatory period of independence' (Rubin 1971: 108). The British government turned down the request, not only because it contradicted the spirit of the UN plebiscite but also because it was constitutionally impossible. Therefore, if the plebiscite favoured the Cameroun proposition, arrangements would have to be made for the early termination of trusteeship. The talks thus came to an end without producing the desired compromise.

However, some Southern Cameroonians came to believe that, as the talks had ended with the plebiscite uncancelled, the second plebiscite proposition had been altered to read Secession. After the plebiscite, therefore, some complained that they had voted for Reunification believing it to be Secession, a situation which Chief Stephen E. Nyenti of Mamfe had reported a few days before the plebiscite took place. As he put it, many 'natives believe that voting for the white box [Reunification] means Southern Cameroons is breaking away from Nigeria in order to be a separate sovereign State' (Chem-Langhëë 1976: 212-3). In private correspondence with E.M. Chilver, some Southern Cameroonians further indicated that they conceived of Reunification as 'an enduring alliance between states rather than a political union, i.e., something even less than a true confederation and more like the Commonwealth'.

Aware that this situation would arise, Foncha once more arranged to meet with Ahidjo in Buea in December 1960. After the meeting, a joint declaration was issued which expressed their 'full agreement' that the UN General Assembly had stated 'with clarity' the two plebiscite questions and asserted that they agreed with the interpretation of the Cameroun alternative as defined in London in November 1960. It also stated that, in the event of a vote in favour of Reunification, a conference of the representatives of the territories concerned, the UN, and the Administering Authorities would be held immediately after the vote to fix the time limit and conditions for the transfer of sovereign powers to an organisation representing the future Federation.

Following the issue and subsequent revision of a document by Foncha laying out terms and conditions, many voters came to believe that, in the event of Reunification, Southern Cameroons would be ruled directly from Buea without necessarily taking instructions from Yaoundé. For that reason, they voted for Reunification expecting a weak federation in which the governments of the federated states would be stronger than the federal government (Chem-Langhëë 1976: 303-33; Chem-Langhëë and Njeuma 1980: 54; Chilver pers. comm.). Foncha himself seemed to have the same expectation and declared that 'he seeks a Cameroons Federation in which the Southern Cameroons would remain much the same as it is now, with the powers presently held by the Administering Authority to be vested in the central government of the Federation' (LeVine 1961: 4). How far these aspirations were realized is indicated by the nature of the Federation.