The Anglophone Cameroon Predicament
This study explores the predicament of Anglophone Cameroon – from the experiment in federation from 1961 to the political liberalisation struggles of the 1990s – to challenge claims of a successful post-independence Cameroonian integration process. Focusing on the perceptions and actions of people in the Anglophone region, Atanga argues that what has come to be called the “Anglophone Problem” constitutes one of the severest threats to the post-colonial nation-state project in Cameroon. As a linguistic and cultural minority, Anglophone Cameroonians realised that the Francophone-led state and government were keener in assimilation than in implementing the federal and bilingual nation agreed upon at reunification in 1960. Calls for national integration became simply a subterfuge for the assimilation of Anglophones by Francophones who dominated the state and government. The book details the various measures undertaken to exploit the Anglophone region’s economy and marginalise its people. Principally the economic structures meant to facilitate self-reliant development were undermined and destroyed. Institutionalised discrimination took the form of the exclusion of Anglophones from positions of real authority, and depriving the region of any meaningful development. With the advent of multi-party politics, most Anglophone Cameroonians increasingly have made vocal demands for a return to a federation, in order to adequately guarantee their rights and recognition for them as a political and cultural minority. Actively encouraged by France, the Francophone-led regime in Cameroon has refused to yield to such demands, despite the grave danger of violent conflict and possible secession.
Indirect Rule—French and British Style
Opening Paragraph In his witty and thought-provoking Lugard Memorial Lecture, ‘Et maintenant, Lord Lugard?’ (Africa, xxxiii. 4, 1963), Gouverneur Deschamps has provided us with an excellent general appraisal of the relative achievements and failures of French and British ‘native’ administration in Africa. But he does not do full justice to the fundamental differences between the two systems. Though he hints at these differences on several occasions in his lecture, he contends that, far from what is generally supposed, the two were in practice very similar, since they both reposed on indigenous chiefs. He insists that ‘la seule différence est que nous n'avons pas tenté, comme vous, Lord Lugard, de moderniser ces états anciens, ni de créer des embryons d'états là où il n'en existait point’; or‘…[our administrative practice] ne différait de la vôtre (au moins en Afrique noire) que par une allure plus familière et des buts moins définis’. This seems seriously to underestimate the nature of the differences between the two systems, which were rather those of kind than of degree. Résumé STYLES FRANÇAIS ET BRITANNIQUES D'ADMINISTRATION INDIRECTE Le Gouverneur Deschamps, dans sa conférence à la mémoire de Lord Lugard ‘Et maintenant, Lord Lugard ?’ ne fait pas suffisamment ressortir les différences fondamentales entre les systèmes d'administration indigène français et britanniques. Ces deux pays durent utiliser, pour gouverner leurs territoires, l'autorité politique existante, mais la situation et le pouvoir du chef dans les deux systèmes, et ses rapports avec le représentant politique étaient totalement différents. Le système britannique était basé sur les rapports consultatifs entre le représentant politique et l'autorité indigène — habituellement un chef — tandis que le système français plaçait le chef dans un rôle entièrement secondaire, semblable à un simple agent du gouvernement colonial central. Les Britanniques utilisaient les méthodes traditionnelles dans le choix de leurs chefs, mais les Français choisissaient plus souvent ceux qui avaient été loyaux, ou avaient reçu une certaine éducation. En conséquence, les chefs étaient souvent mal vus dans certaines parties de l'Afrique Occidentale Française, tandis que leur prestige augmentait généralement dans les territoires britanniques. Les Britanniques s'inspiraient de l'idée de développement autonome pour leurs territoires africains, mais les Français de celle d'assimilation, quʼils abandonnèrent plus tard en faveur d'une politique d'association. Le représentant politique français fut alors à même d'établir des rapports plus faciles avec l'Africain évolué que ne le fut le représentant britannique. Il est essentiel de comprendre la nature de ces différences entre les systèmes français et britanniques, non seulement afin d'être au courant de l'histoire coloniale en Afrique, mais aussi en vue d'apprécier les différences qui existent aujourdʼhui entre les deux blocs linguistiques principaux de l'Afrique indépendante.
Cognitive Correlaretes of Physics Achievement of Some Nigeria Senior Secondary Students
Some cognitive correlates of physics achievement of some Nigeria senior secondary students were considered in the study. Specifically, the study examined the relationship between measures of student’s field independency. Cognitive tasks, formal reasoning and their achievement in physics. Purposive and stratified random sampling techniques were employed to obtain a sample of 524 senior secondary two students from six education zones in Kogi State of Nigeria. Three instruments were used. They are science Reasoning Tasks (SRTs). Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) and Physics Achievement Test (PAT). Data analysis using multiple regressions reveals that measures of students’ fields’ independency and cognitive tasks predicted student’s achievement in physics generally. However, only measure of field independency predicted students’ achievement in physics in the higher order cognitive demand questions. Measures of formal reasoning had no significant relationship with students’ achievements in physics generally or in higher order cognitive demand questions in physics. However, the overall relationships between measures of field independency, cognitive tasks, formal reasoning and students’ achievement in physics generally and in higher order cognitive demand questions in physics were both significant. Educational implications of these findings were discussed.