North West province: the other professional petition writing land of Cameroon

The only other region of Cameroon where top civil servants don’t like to be posted to is the North West province. The North West is one of the two English-speaking provinces of Cameroon, which makes up the Anglophone region of the country. The North West province is part of the grass land regions of Cameroon. But what differentiate the North West province with the Bassa regions, are not only the facts that, the first are English-speaking, while the second are in majority French-speaking. Their difference is also cultural. The people of the North West like their French-speaking “brothers” of the French-speaking Grass field province of the West are attached to their traditional cultures, even though highly westernised and Christianised. Furthermore, the people of the North West have a very organised and hierarchical society, wherein law and order is respected and also where, traditional chiefs known in the North West province as Fons or Lamidos (in parts with Muslim population) are considered as demigods. But In the Littoral (excluding Bassaland), Centre (excluding Bassaland) and South provinces, it is easy for civil servants to work. While in the four provinces of the Littoral, Centre, East and South provinces, civil servants do not encounter major difficulties to work, it is only within the Bassaland and for reasons already mentioned that they encounter problems.

The North West province is an atypical province, for it is difficult for civil servant to work in the entire province, especially if he/she is not from the English-speaking region or in extreme cases, not a national (native) of the province. But ordinarily, the people of the North West province are warmth, jovial and welcoming. But administratively, they are not docile, they are professional petition writers, who do not only satisfy themselves with writing petitions, they also know how to make their anger known to the authorities in largely peaceful demonstrations, that sadly, almost always ends up in bloodbath. There is a reason for the perpetual rebellious petition writing and demonstrations against civil servants who are posted to work in the North West province of Cameroon. The people of the North West province, like their real brothers of the South West province, have a fundamentally different cultural background with most administrators sent to work in their region. These administrators are almost always French-speaking Cameroonians, who know nothing but brutality and top down orders. For the have been trained according to the Napoleonic inquisitory and inhumane system of administration, as opposed to the much more humane and democratic adversarial system that English-speaking Cameroonians were raised in and are used to.