Barrister Bobga Harmony speaks out on the wayforward for Anglophones

First of all congratulations for the successful holding of the Common Law Lawyers’ Inaugural Conference in Bamenda on May 9, 2015

Thank you.

What made you and your Colleagues decide to issue an ultimatum to government on the form of the State, by requesting a return to the Federal System?

Personally, being a Southern Cameroonian by birth and conscious of the fact that the government of “La Republique du Cameroun” has brutally been carrying out a convenience reconstruction of history expressly to set the stage for treating the identity of the peoples of Southern Cameroons as inconsequential,  and at best to make us the lesser people of their new Cameroun.  This is evident in the works of pseudo-Academics who are desperately hungry for government appointments and accompanying favours to the extent that they have become Alchemists of history capacity to create rather that report history to suit the annexationist and assimilative policies of government against the peoples of Southern Cameroons.

As concerns my Colleagues, the fact that we were able to organize our conference with the unique character of each and every one of us being co-Convenors rather that an individual or a small group, as demonstrated in the turnout at that conference, coupled with the consensus on close to every issue that we had to debate, demonstrates that we all on the same page of rejecting government’s assimilation of Southern Cameroonians long standing project despite sustained cries from our people which has not only fallen on deaf ears but has consistently attracted savage armed suppression, intimidation and all other methods of covet dissuasion of our people from dissent against the illegality and illegitimacy of government actions on our people.

From the document mistreatment of Southern Cameroonians particularly in the rude depletion of the Common Law System which offers better security of rule of law and justice, we realized that we were losing our salt as Common Law Lawyers if we did not stand up as one man to say no the rape of the security of the human being that the law and only the common law offers for that matter.

The yester-years when we had only primary school teachers with their limitations to lead us are gone for good. From an ethical standpoint Lawyers are not simply traders who engage solely in making money, we have a duty to our communities to serve without pay and this is precisely what we are up to and will use every legal means to achieve our goal like first making a time-limited demand or wake-up call to government which you call ultimatum.

Do you have a feeling you have a mandate to make such a request and in the words you did?

It is often said the last bastion of the common man’s liberty is the Law and Lawyers. We are meant to be, and should indeed always be, accountable to the community were serve as Professionals. Our mandate to protect the frame work, tools, and related customs and traditions which constitute the Common Law Legal System we are accustomed to in our business of protecting human rights and civil liberties which include the right to self-determination, rule of law,  justice of the highest integrity, and a democratic culture, is incidental to our oath of office as Lawyers. It must also be reckoned that we are not from a different planet. We are an integral part of the illegally mistreated lot of Southern Cameroonians. Our double status of common victims and defenders of the defenceless folks naturally gives us a legitimate and legal mandate to stand up for ourselves and members of our community.

What exactly do you as Lawyers plan to do were the government to ignore your threats as mere bickering of a frustrated lot?

I am glad that you already figure out that government has always and could be poised to ignore our call. We also figured this out from the onset and have legal non-violent disposition to cause government to either willingly or involuntarily change its attitude of irreponsivity to one of recognition of the peace potential of responding to a call for dialogue. May I also say no one can be wrong to say we are FRUSTRATED but it is most incorrect today and tomorrow to say we have engaged in bickering. We mean business and in the days ahead the world will be opportune to assess the dexterity of our legal minds that powers our resolve.

When you talk of illegal occupation of Southern Cameroons by forces of La Republique du Cameroun do you not all sound more of Southern Cameroons National Council Activist than Lawyers?

As an individual the government of “La Republique to Cameroun” would be playing the Ostrich if it claims that it is unaware that I am a longstanding Counsel not just for SCNC  but SCAPO and even Southern Cameroonians contributing solo in the struggle to protect their national identity. This is evident from my appearances in Court in Cameroon and especially in an international forum like The African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights in Banjul, The Gambia where I am the one who filed Communication 377/2007 asserting the security of the right to self-determination of Southern Cameroonians.

Regarding Common Law Lawyers in general there are many who belong to the two main political parties in Cameroun i.e. The CPDM and SDF and more. What unites us therefore in purpose include the justified right to a legal cultural system –The Common Law System, the benefit of which is better protection of the internationally recognized rights of Southern Cameroonians.

We cannot also beg the question of the illegality of the operation of the government of “La Republique du Cameroun” within the soil of Southern Cameroons especially since the unfortunate constitutional amendment of 1984 that complete the programmed abdication of “La Republique du Cameroun” from the union project of Southern Cameroons and “La Republique du Cameroun”. Like the Sene-Gambian experiment, that constitutional gaff of an amendment of 1984, disposed of the opportunity of a corrective constitutional foundation for a United Cameroon that has never been.

The call for a return to the two State Federation experiment is indeed a compromise consensus of the inaugural Common Law Lawyers’ Conference of May 9, 2015.

Now, you have given government six (6) months to meet your demands and we know the capacity of the regime to divide and rule, what mechanism have you put in place to forestall that?

Trust me the enemy’s tool of “divide and rule” will not work this time around because our resolve is the result of the highest democratic debate that culminated in a set of consensual resolutions. The security of our steadfastness with those resolutions is anchored in our individual and collective consciences as men of law of integrity equitable to the strength of hard diamond. None of us is ready to take on the coat of shame.

Mind you also the support we have received from the public to our call is determinant; it is like a mix of hard black coffee taken after chewing a bucket of colanuts.

We have resolved to overcome and we shall make it peacefully.

I particularly wish to refer to what Politicians like to stay glued to: the North West/South West divide. How would you react when you hear for example that your colleagues of the South West have been bought over to ignore the cause henceforth?

The South West/North West divide is a construct of the government of “La Republique du Cameroun” for the singular purposes of effectuating the divide and rule tactic. This tool works for politicians. It has not utility when it comes to dealing with gentlemen of the law who have especially anchored themselves and their restoration and protection of Common Law Legal Culture on consensus and conscience.

The members of the Common Law Lawyers’ Conference are not the cheap breed on the African Continent. We are resolute and steadfast to our resolution and are committed like one person to attain our objective through the use of peaceful and legal avenues within and without Cameroon.

What if the North West Elite come to remind you that remaining part of this thing would cause the Post of Prime Minister to go to the South West?

I understand this question to be a comparism that sounds like the joke of placing an elephant on one side of a scale and placing a little bird on the other side. Not only is the weight difference so glaring but the exercise is neither here nor there. There is never a day in human reasoning that the sovereign identity and the socio-cultural legal rights of a people will be equated to an inconsequential sinecure office like that of an appointed Prime Minister.

Personally I feel the post of prime Minister is both an exploitation and ridicule of not simply the occupant of that office today but Southern Cameroonians as a whole, especially as the carpet is said to be pulled from under “our feet” by the enormity of powers granted to the Secretary General of the Prime Minister’s Office purely and simply because that second office is occupied not by a Southern Cameroonian. The Office of Prime Minister is a burden both to our brother and to all Southern Cameroonians, taking it to one of us in the South West Region will not change its inconsequential character.

How would you say huge sums of money doled out to Common Law Lawyers can affect the outcome of your ultimatum?

Even though I am so trusting of the solid foundation of my English Language from Sasse College, are we here talking of “…huge sums of money that were doled out…” or “…were huge sums of money to be doled out” ?. If you mean the former I want to reassure you that the spirit of the Common Law Lawyers’ Conference ignited a firewall and would not only have shielded the Conference from such evil design but more importantly would have transformed who ever might have been used saving such individual from wearing the cassock of Judas Iscariot.

If you meant the question to read in a futuristic form with the latter phrase, just know that opening prayer at that Conference brought down the holy Spirit to encapsulate each Common Law Lawyer , individually and thereafter bound all of us into one solid family reminiscent of those in NOAH’s Biblical Ark so that we are from that May 9, 2015 saved and insulated from the evil and curse of corruption.

We shall be fasting and praying to nurture our spiritual inoculation against temptation with corruption until we overcome.

What promise are you making to those Southern Cameroonians who are already cheering and throwing their support behind you?

We shall succeed and you shall be better protected in your rights of all sorts, but as you cheer supportively, do not relent in trusting God and to do this don not praise us, fast and pray as you give glory to God Almighty. With God nobody fails.