• Sat. Feb 8th, 2025

Emmanuel Endeley and the Making of Southern Cameroun. Mistake or Success?

Bychrisdahi

Dec 6, 2024

Emmanuel Mbela Lifafa Endeley, OBE (1916–1988), was a Cameroonian politician who played a pivotal role in leading Southern Cameroonian representatives out of the Eastern Nigerian House of Assembly in Enugu and successfully negotiating the creation of the autonomous region of Southern Cameroons in 1954.

Endeley completed his secondary education at the high brow Government College, Umuahia, Nigeria. The school that produced the likes of Chinua Achebe and Chris Okigbo, to mention just two of the literary giants that came out of that citadel. Although initially intending to study agriculture at Yaba Higher College, he shifted his focus to medicine, earning a government scholarship to attend the Nigerian School of Medicine in Yaba in 1935.

In 1951, Endeley was elected to the Eastern Nigerian Assembly in Enugu. The following year, he was appointed to the Council of Ministers as a minister without portfolio and later served as Minister of Labour from 1953 to 1954.

Endeley campaigned for Southern Cameroons to be granted special regional status separate from Nigeria. When the Southern Cameroons Regional Assembly was established, he became one of its inaugural members.

In 1953, Endeley, alongside John Ngu Foncha and Solomon Tandeng Muna, broke away from the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) to form the Kamerun National Congress (KNC), which sought autonomy for Southern Cameroons. By 1954, British Cameroons had gained federal status with its own House of Assembly and executive council.

Over time, Endeley’s political stance shifted, and he began advocating for greater integration of Southern Cameroons with Nigeria. In 1957, he narrowly won the election to become the first Prime Minister of Southern Cameroons, a position he formally assumed the following year.

However, the tide of public opinion favoured reunification with French Cameroun. On February 11, 1961, the United Nations organised a plebiscite to decide the territory’s future. Endeley opposed it and released a lengthy pamphlet urging the people of Southern Cameroons to vote “no” but stay with Nigeria.

However, it was a futile campaign as the people rejected Nigeria and voted in favour of reunification with French Cameroun.

When one considers the long drawn battle of this Southern Cameroun to extricate themselve from the supposedly unhealthy and quite imbalanced relationship with the French Cameroun in their declaration of the Absinia republic, one is forced to ask if Emmanuel Endeley’s radical move of taking them away from Nigeria was a sound or irrational political move.

One howevr has to consider Nigeria’s political trjectory and its current situation before coming to a sound and conclusive decision on the matter.

Emmanuel Mbela Lifafa Endeley, OBE was a Cameroonian politician who led Southern Cameroonian representatives out of the Eastern Nigerian House of Assembly in Enugu and negotiated the creation of the autonomous region of Southern Cameroons in 1954. Wikipedia

Born: April 10, 1916, Buea, Cameroon

Died: June 1988 (age 72 years)

Previous offices: Premier of Southern Cameroons (1954–1959), Prime minister of British Cameroon (1954–1959)

Education: Government College Umuahia

~copied etodike

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/the-largest-living-creature-ever-seen/9069
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