At Last Biya Announces Reunification Celebration for February 20, 2014

By Fai Cassian Ndi

Speculations as to whether President Biya has nullified the reunification celebrations he announced for Buea in 2011 have come to null. Once again, Paul Biya has debunked bookmakers by taking them by bolt from the blue. This is so following a communiqué issued today February 14, by the Director of Civil Cabinet at the Presidency announcing that the Reunification Celebrations have been billed for February 19-21, 2014. The Director of Civil Cabinet at the Presidency, Martin Belinga Eboutou, further indicates that President Biya and wife Chantal Biya will be in Buea for the celebrations on Feb 20, 2014. Emotions are said to be at the peak in the South West Region following this release from the Presidency. Echoes from the South West Regional capital abound that local organizing committee is leaving no stone un-turn to ensure a hitch-free celebration.  Sources close to the chairman of the local organizing committee has confirmed that 111 hotels of 2500 rooms have been identified, 18 parking spaces and the water capacity has been augmented from 3000 to 7000 m3. In fact a school of thought holds that the ceremony should have been postponed again for Buea to benefit more lofty projects. The Presidency we gathered coughed out FCFA 13.5 billion to sponsor reunification projects?  It should be recalled that it was in 2011 that President Biya announced that the 50^th Anniversary of Reunification would take place in Buea but has ever since seal lips on the date. Last February 10, in his address to Cameroonian youth, he re-echoed that the event was would take place in few weeks. Wicked whispers had long seen the postponement as a failure. Yet expectations are rife at that President Biya will make some pronouncement on the union between the Southern Cameroons and La Republique in Buea. However, promoters and sympathizers of the UNO state of Cameroon and the Southern Cameroons National Council have been arguing that the former British Cameroon should be granted independence. This they have always argued is based on the gross marginalization of Anglophones. Another school of thought holds that Cameroonians should be celebrating 53rd Anniversary of Reunification and not 50th Anniversary. As usual, President Biya played the Maradona to take Cameroonians by surprise by announcing the date of the event on February 20th. Expectations are high as what President Biya will tell the Anglophones on the issue of national integration and the bi-cultural nature of the marriage between the Southern Cameroons and La Republic du Cameroun. 

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