Cameroon's Federation Flag with the two states represented by two stars
Sixty-five years after reunification, Cameroon gives its main national celebration to the constitutional change that abolished the federation. The choice raises questions about consent, historical recognition and the roots of Anglophone discontent.
On 1 October 2026, Cameroon reaches the 65th anniversary of the union that created the Federal Republic of Cameroon. Yet 1 October has no place in the presidency’s published list of legal holidays. The country’s National Day is 20 May. 1,2
That choice deserves scrutiny. On 1 October 1961, British-administered Southern Cameroons joined the already independent Republic of Cameroon in a federation. The referendum of 20 May 1972 led to the abolition of that federation. Cameroon gives its main annual national celebration to the later constitutional change. 2,3
Why should the country celebrate the dismantling of the federal arrangement that brought its two constituent states together while failing to recognise the anniversary of their union as an annual national occasion?
For Anglophones who regard the loss of federal autonomy as a betrayal, the calendar gives that grievance a recurring public expression. MMI News believes Cameroon should recognise 1 October as an annual Reunification Day and permit peaceful debate about the history it commemorates.
The territories that came together had experienced different systems of administration. Following Germany’s defeat in the First World War, its former Cameroon territory was divided between Britain and France. French-administered Cameroon became independent on 1 January 1960 as the Republic of Cameroon. 3,4
In the UN-supervised plebiscite of 11 February 1961, Southern Cameroons voted to join that republic. The options were joining Cameroon or joining Nigeria. Separate independence was not on the ballot. Northern Cameroons voted to join Nigeria. 3,5
British trusteeship over Southern Cameroons ended on 1 October 1961 as the territory joined the new federation. Southern Cameroons became West Cameroon, while the former Republic of Cameroon became East Cameroon. The two were constituent states within the Federal Republic of Cameroon. 2
West Cameroon had its own government and legislature. Federalism provided an institutional framework for accommodating differences in administration, education and law that colonial rule had left behind. Recognising that history requires acknowledging Southern Cameroons’ distinct route out of British administration and into the union. 2,6
Unequal power was already a problem in the 1961 arrangement. International Crisis Group’s historical account describes a federal executive that progressively reduced West Cameroon’s room to govern. The political imbalance was present well before 1972. 7
Nevertheless, the existence of West Cameroon’s institutions mattered. They gave the smaller partner a political identity within the common state. Their removal changed the terms on which people understood their membership of Cameroon.
President Ahmadou Ahidjo held the 1972 referendum under a single-party system. It replaced the federation with a unitary state, bringing West Cameroon’s separate government and legislature to an end. The country became the United Republic of Cameroon. 7
The government’s historical account presents 1972 as a further stage of unification. For opponents of the change, it represented the removal of the institutions through which Anglophone autonomy had been exercised. The same event therefore carries sharply different political meanings. 3,7
Its constitutional validity has also been contested. Anglophone critics invoke Article 47 of the 1961 Constitution, which protected the unity and integrity of the federation. Defenders of the change advance different interpretations of that provision and of the power to amend the Constitution through a referendum. 8
The political question remains even where legal interpretations differ. When a smaller territory joins a larger neighbour under a federal arrangement, what safeguards ensure that the larger population cannot subsequently remove the smaller partner’s autonomy? A nationwide majority does not, by itself, answer whether the terms of the original partnership were respected.
Federalism had offered a way for the two territories to share a country while retaining institutions suited to their different histories. Ending that arrangement required an explanation of how those differences would continue to receive political protection. Celebrating the constitutional change each year cannot substitute for that explanation.
The loss of federal autonomy is a central historical root of Anglophone discontent. Giving 20 May precedence over 1 October promotes the 1972 settlement as the defining achievement of national unity. An annual 1 October commemoration would keep the earlier federal arrangement in public view and invite questions about what happened to its guarantees. 6
The treatment of 1 October commemorations adds a more troubling dimension. The Southern Cameroons National Council, or SCNC, used the anniversary to assert Southern Cameroons’ independence and right to self-determination. These observances carried a political claim about the union and increasingly about separation. They were distinct from the government’s own reunification narrative. 9
Authorities regarded the SCNC as an illegal secessionist organisation. Canadian government research records officials explaining that its objectives prevented it from obtaining legal recognition. This was the state’s justification for restricting its activities, including meetings. 9
The arrests were documented years before the conflict that escalated in 2017. In October 2002, Amnesty International reported the detention of Albert Mukong, Chief Ayamba and Nfor Ngala Nfor, alongside other activists. It considered Mukong a prisoner of conscience and said he was being held for speaking about Anglophone self-determination and advising the SCNC. 10
Later records describe security forces disrupting meetings and arresting activists around 1 October in 2011 and 2012. The anniversary repeatedly became an occasion for preventive restrictions and detention. 9
A secessionist objective does not establish that every person attending a meeting has committed a violent offence. Peaceful commemoration and political argument should be judged by what participants actually do. Arresting people for such activities risks turning the state’s defence of unity into an experience of exclusion.
A different approach had already been recommended. In its 2009 decision in Kevin Mgwanga Gunme and others v Cameroon, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights found several Charter violations, including violations of freedom of assembly and association. It urged the government to enter constructive dialogue with the SCNC and the Southern Cameroons Peoples’ Organisation over constitutional grievances. It also urged those organisations to abandon secessionism and engage in dialogue. 11,12
The Commission’s position provided a route for addressing grievances within Cameroon. The state’s territorial integrity and the need to hear constitutional complaints could be considered together. Repeated arrests left little room for that approach.
The government can point to an official reunification celebration. On 20 February 2014, Paul Biya presided over the delayed 50th-anniversary ceremony in Buea. The anniversary itself had fallen on 1 October 2011. In his speech, Biya honoured reunification and called for the preservation of national unity. 13
A jubilee held more than two years after the anniversary did not establish 1 October as an annual national observance. It did not give successive generations a regular occasion to examine why Southern Cameroons joined the republic, what federalism provided or why its removal became contested.
An annual Reunification Day could make that history part of public education across the country. Its purpose should include discussion of disagreements about the union. Citizens should be able to participate without having to endorse the government’s interpretation of every constitutional change that followed.
The state’s willingness to stage its own ceremony, alongside its restrictions on SCNC commemorations, suggests an effort to control the permissible meaning of reunification. Whose account of Cameroon’s formation is allowed a legitimate public place?
The philosophical issue is consent. In his 1882 lecture What Is a Nation, Ernest Renan described a nation’s existence as a “daily plebiscite”. He linked shared memories with the continuing willingness of people to live together. 14
Applied to Cameroon, this means that the 1961 vote cannot carry the entire burden of national legitimacy indefinitely. The quality of government after the vote matters. Citizens’ attachment to the country depends partly on whether they can use their institutions, speak about their history and influence decisions affecting their lives.
A union agreed under particular constitutional terms creates obligations towards those who joined it. When the state changes those terms, it must explain how their interests remain protected. Treating their objections as evidence of disloyalty avoids the underlying question of consent.
Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor offers another useful argument in The Politics of Recognition. He argues that identity is partly shaped by recognition, including how others portray a person or group. The absence of recognition, or a distorted account of someone’s identity, can cause harm. 15
In Cameroon, official recognition of Southern Cameroons’ history would affirm that this experience belongs within the country’s account of itself. Giving 1 October an annual national place could communicate that Anglophones’ historical contribution deserves public acknowledgement. Suppressing peaceful observances risks communicating the opposite.
Anglophones hold different views on federalism and independence. A national commemoration should allow that disagreement. Recognition becomes more credible when citizens can question the official account, including whether the 1961 partnership delivered the autonomy they expected.
The commemorative dispute expresses a deeper conflict over autonomy and political belonging. Grievances concerning courts, education and the distribution of power gave the disagreement consequences in people’s working lives. Resolving those problems required decisions about institutions and government.
The immediate escalation began with lawyers’ and teachers’ protests in late 2016. On 17 January 2017, the government banned the SCNC and the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium. Consortium leaders Nkongho Felix Agbor-Balla and Fontem Neba were arrested on the day they had issued a call for non-violent protest. 16
In August 2017, before the independence declaration, International Crisis Group identified government repression, arrests and the internet shutdown as factors that had damaged trust and helped radicalise the movement. Its report also recorded concessions, including Common Law measures and restored internet access, which movement leaders considered too late. Peaceful grievances were developing into a wider confrontation over the state itself. 7
On 1 October 2017, separatist leaders proclaimed an independent state called Ambazonia. Amnesty International subsequently reported that security forces had unlawfully shot dead more than 20 people during the 1 October protests and that at least 500 people remained detained when it published its report on 13 October. 17,18
We cannot know whether an annual commemoration would have prevented the 2017 declaration. There is nevertheless a reasonable argument that earlier recognition of the date, alongside protection for peaceful organising and serious engagement with constitutional grievances, could have reduced alienation. Repression helped close opportunities for political negotiation.
The government’s choices can be examined without claiming that it deliberately wanted war. The evidence supports scrutiny of a recurring preference for political control, despite warnings that repression could worsen the dispute. Responsibility for those decisions remains a legitimate subject of public questioning.
Cameroon should give 1 October permanent national recognition. A government that invokes reunification when defending the country’s unity should make its anniversary an occasion on which citizens can examine the terms and consequences of that union.
Such recognition must include freedom to commemorate peacefully. Schools should teach the distinct histories of the territories that joined in 1961, including the limited choices offered in the plebiscite and the institutions that existed before 1972. Public discussion should permit disagreement about federalism and the present distribution of power.
The state should also account for the arrests and abuses associated with past commemorations. A newly designated holiday would carry little weight if the same peaceful activities continued to invite detention. Constitutional dialogue and protection for Anglophone legal and educational institutions would give public recognition practical substance.
20 May can remain part of Cameroon’s historical calendar, but its meaning should be open to debate. Presenting it as an uncomplicated celebration of unity leaves out the loss that opponents of the 1972 change have long described. Recognising 1 October would allow the country’s annual commemorations to acknowledge how the federation began as well as how it ended.
The government should designate 1 October as an annual Reunification Day and allow citizens to discuss what the union promised and what political arrangements they can accept today. Southern Cameroons’ place in Cameroon’s history deserves that public recognition and freedom of debate.
1. Cameroon Presidency — Presentation of Cameroon, including the list of legal holidays
2. UK Parliament, Hansard — British Trusteeship, 7 November 1961
3. Embassy of Cameroon in Washington — History of Cameroon
4. Reuters — The causes of Cameroon’s six-year separatist conflict, 5 October 2023
5. UK Parliament, Hansard — Southern Cameroons, 1 August 1961
7. International Crisis Group — Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis at the Crossroads, 2 August 2017
15. Charles Taylor — The Politics of Recognition, reproduced from Multiculturalism, 1994 edition
17. BBC Monitoring — Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis enters fourth year
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