from Africa Today Volume 49, Number 4

Excerpt from

Politics and Constitution-Making in Francophone Cameroon, 1959-1960

Nicodemus Fru Awasom

Permission to Copy

You may download, save, or print for your personal use without permission. If you wish to disseminate the electronic article, or to produce multiple copies for classroom or educational use, please request permission from:

Copyright Clearance Center
Professional Relations Department
222 Rosewood Drive
Danvers MA 01923

FAX: 978-750-4470/4744
Web address: www.copyright.com

For other permissions or reprint use contact:

Rights and Permissions, Journals Division
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton St.
Bloomington, IN 47404

FAX: 812 855-8507
E-mail: journals@indiana.edu

Permission to Copy

You may download, save, or print for your personal use without permission. If you wish to disseminate the electronic article, or to produce multiple copies for classroom or educational use, please request permission from:

Copyright Clearance Center
Professional Relations Department
222 Rosewood Drive
Danvers MA 01923

FAX: 978-750-4470/4744
Web address: www.copyright.com

For other permissions or reprint use contact:

Rights and Permissions, Journals Division
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton St.
Bloomington, IN 47404

FAX: 812 855-8507
E-mail: journals@indiana.edu

This essay examines politics in Francophone Cameroon and its impact on the making of the Cameroonian constitution of 1960. Politics in Francophone Cameroon was characterized by violence, bloodshed, and the suppression of civil liberties. This political turmoil was the handiwork of French administrators, who indulged themselves in the uphill task of exterminating anti-French Cameroonians. Prime Minister Ahidjo used the turmoil as a pretext to obtain emergency powers from parliament to design Cameroon's constitution. The constitution was adopted in a referendum while a state of emergency was in force, the French army was protecting the Ahidjo government against its citizens, and French administrators were present to rig the vote.
Introduction

Constitution-making was an important component in the nation-building project of colonialists in Africa, and it assumed urgency at the penultimate stage of decolonization. The exercise was undertaken in partnership with the African political elite, and its outcome was a wholesale reproduction of metropolitan models, with some adjustments to local situations.1

African elite involvement by the colonialists in constitution-building was indispensable because Africans had to assume the leadership of their countries on the attainment of independence. African participation brought to light the diverse and sometimes conflicting ethnic, religious, or regional interests. The colonialists, in their capacity as midwives of the new nation-states in the offing, often played the role of umpires and guides and ensured that the final constitutional document was a compromise, one that was the expression of the will of the people and would be a viable instrument of governance. In Nigeria, for instance, the politics of constitution-making touched on issues such as the extent of the devolution of power to the component units of the federation, the rights of minorities, and state secularism (Akander 1982; Nwabueze 1982). These issues were hotly debated before the final enactment of the 1960 constitution by the British parliament.

IU Press Journals
Home Page
More about Africa Today
Library
Recommendation
Tables of
Contents
Advance
Information
Submission
Guidelines