BAMENDA—Tracts calling on Cameroonians to stay away from the upcoming presidential election come October 9, 2011 and the departure of President Biya from office are flooding the streets of Bamenda and its environs.

The authors of the tracts are Rev. Bertin Kisob, of the Cameroon Party for Social Justice- one of the presidential candidates whose application was, according to him “unjustly rejected by the so called ELECAM and the supreme court” and Barrister Tanifum of the Forum for Change; a civil society organization based in Bamenda.

They are calling on Cameroonians not to be deceived by Biya into any elections that he himself already knows the result.

“More than 29 years in power is dictatorship –the republic is not a monarchy of old men,” states one of the tracts.

“Political will and better social and economic development can only be achieved in Cameroon with the exit of Biya from power,” said Tanifum.

He called on Cameroonians to furnish the Forum for Change with all necessary information and contacts for a “successful strategic planning” to effect change in Cameroon.

The tracts are creating a lot of uncertainty and panic in the minds of many North Westerners who are very much apprehensive of what might happen in the days ahead, giving that Bamenda is considered by most Cameroonians as the bastion of the opposition and where all dissents emanate.

On the sideline, the Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC) in an open letter to Biya, also circulating in Bamenda and signed by Thomas N. Nwacham, the national chairman of the pressure group calls on the President to “relate October 1 to its correct event, being the strict independence date of Southern Cameroons”.

In the letter, Biya was reminded of his numerous “unfulfilled” promises to Anglophone Cameroonians and the fact the president has no intention of ever fulfilling them because more expensive and less remunerative economic projects has been carried in the Francophone territory.

The letter states “remember how the Ring Road and the Victoria Sea port promises of 1985 ended in a fiasco”. This they say tantamount to marginalization of a people “who joined La Republique du Cameroun on equal platforms.”

The SCNC is a pressure group fighting for the total independence of Anglophone Cameroon because they feel marginalized in the present union with French Cameroon.

According to SCNC activists, October 1 is the independence day of Southern Cameroonians and should be celebrated as such.

The group is calling on all Anglophones to rally in Buea on that day to present their case to the international community.

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