A Most Welcome Regulatory Body!

When the President of the Republic, in his address to the nation, began to talk of the running rumpus in the North-West and South-West Regions, many had quickly believed he was going to use a heavy hand.

Like a father he, understandably, began by denouncing the violence that accompanied the demands of the remonstrating lawyers and teachers because, as we had mentioned in earlier commentaries in Cameroon Tribune, all these damages have to be paid by the same taxpayers in one way or the other either by having to sacrifice other urgent developmental initiatives to have the destroyed buildings or vehicles or simply by increasing taxation in order to acquire new ones.

In some way, it is like inflicting pain on one’s self. The President even appeared to be sympathetic to the cause by acknowledging the right of citizens to organize strikes whenever they felt slighted; cautioning however that this should not extend beyond the cut-off points of the law. A quick flash down memory lane reveals that if these problems ever got to the dimension they took in the past few months, it was largely due to government red tape and administrative indifference blamed on public servants who did not seem to give due respect to the requirements of the Constitution and went along with government business as if the informal or casual could continue to get along simply because no one on the Anglophone side had cared to stir the hornet’s nest over the overly heavy dominance of French in daily administrative transactions.

The situation had gradually left the impression that English was relegated to second fiddle position and often used when every other emergency had been addressed. The overall tone and forbearing posture of the Presidential message is clear about his intention of getting this worrying palaver ended. And this should also be consoling enough to get the teachers back to the negotiating table. It is even of good augur to learn that the estranged members of the negotiating team have already called the chairperson of the negotiating committee, Professor Paul Ghogomou to indicate their readiness to resume talks.

And even when the talks resume, there will be one major breakthrough in the fact that the President of the Republic announced the imminent setting up of a structure to oversee the functioning of bilingual system in the country. Hear him:...