The Anglophone Cameroon crisis and its history with Nigeria

Cameroon, currently reeling after major protests in its English-speaking regions is a central African country that shares its western border with Nigeria.

British Southern Cameroon (Anglophone region of Cameroon) was originally part of German Kamerun (which is today's Cameroon). 

When the Germans lost the war in 1918, Britain and France took over the territory of Kamerun. It was then divided into two, the French administered four-fifth of the territory (today's Francophone Cameroon) as a mandate territory while the British took one-fifth of the territory British Cameroons and administered as part of their colonial territory Nigeria, for convenience purposes. 

Cameroon’s current difficulties stem back to its pre-independence history when it was formed by combining a north-west and south-west region that was colonized by the British with the larger region run by the French where the Anglophone regions account for just under 20% of the Cameroon’s 23 million population.

This British Cameroons was furthered carved into two, British Southern Cameroons (today's anglophone Cameroon), and British Northern Cameroons (which is part of today's northern Nigeria). 

In 1961, British southern Cameroons and British northern Cameroons were given the option to either gain independence by voting to join Nigeria or Francophone Cameroon. 

British Northern Cameroons on 11th Feb 1961 voted to join Nigeria, while British Southern Cameroons voted to join French Cameroon in a federal union which took effect on October 1, 1961. This then became the federal republic of Cameroon. 
 

Boundary Changes between Southern Cameroons and The Republic of Cameroun

In 1972, the former President of Cameroon, Ahmadou Ahidjo masterminded the cancellation of the federal state and made it unitary. Since then, Anglophone Cameroonians have been systematically marginalized in Cameroon after things took a violent turn in October, 2016. 

And for many Nigerians who had always thought that, southern Cameroon was once part of a break away from Nigeria, the fact is that, technically it wasn't part of Nigeria, it was part of Cameroon which the British administered as part of Nigeria for administrative conveniences. 

By Enfants Triste