19/05/2026
National Unity: time to find the foundation stones.
Since 1972, the expression national unity, taken from the French Unité Nationale, has become a regular theme in public discussions around this period. The expression may not directly refer to something concrete, in English and a second one, living together, from the French "Vivre ensemble", has also been used interchangeably. Compare this with National flag, national anthem and national football team and you may not find any tangible object to the expression National Unity.
However, the initiators, led by President Amadou Ahidjo, thought of building a nation out of the 2-Sate Federation that had been canceled after the only referendum in which 99.97% of voters agreed. Ahidjo and his team had just wiped out the last vestiges of the UPC independence fighters and were looking forward to doing other business towards the development of the young country. For this project to succeed, it needed a union of hearts and minds between the North and the South of the French Cameroon, for many scars had been opened and needed healing. When you bring in the State of West Cameroon that had been kept aside as a separate State because of its administrative and management difference, it tells of the huge task to be managed in the search for National Unity.
Listening to some media outlets, one gets away with the impression that this important business has been replaced by trivial stories. That a Francophone family has enrolled their child in an Anglo-Saxon college, that a man from Yagoua has lived in Batouri for 30 years, that a man from Mamfe is married to a Beti lady, that more restaurants are serving eru in Yaounde, that a man from Mbangasina speaks English, and so on and so forth, as if these social phenomena began with the introduction of National Unity in 1972.
We take National Unity to mean Nation building, carving a union of hearts and minds for a common project, and resolving to continue. That way, National Unity will be found in common projects that do not depend on language or tribe. Some other comments have it that "football is the only factor that unites Cameroonians", as if football has become a national project.
To get people together in a geographical area, with the project to form a nation, begins with communicating the message of that unity. Doalogue, constant dialogue is important here.. When the above issues are implemented in such a way that some citizens feel excluded, a stone would have been pulled out of the Nation's foundation. When the boundary is not secured and soldiers have to die on a daily basis, it brings fear and sends away citizens from their villages, thereby removing a stone from the Unity foundation. When gunshots are heard from the inside, and this leads to death in many numbers, it removes many stones from the Unity Foundation. When election disputes lead to arrests and imprisonment, causing participants to spend several months condemning A or B on the media, it sucks energy from the builders whose time is precious. When farmers toil only to find imported food selling in their markets, they cannot belong to the Naion with confidence.
It is time to take stock of the road covered this far, taking each factor at a time. The Grand National dialogue is an example of what could be organized every year on a given aspect of Nation Building. The education project in its bilingual form and content, the use of English and French in the administration, the spread of political representation, land ownership and traditional leadership, the creation of State universities and their impact, the right to treatment for illness in a foreign hospital, natural resources management with focus on timber, petrolium and gold etc. The absence of balanced development, discussed and implemented, has been a serious drawback.
That way, the march past, the patriotic songs, the uniforms and so on will be the icing of the cake.
Kihkishiy Lawrence,
Yaounde.
