Profiling Interim Government Cabinet: How Much Do You Know Prof Carlson Anyangwe?

After the recent appointments: The Men and Women chosen to run the new government:

My first bus stop to understand the caliber of people chosen to run the Interim government of Sisiku Ayuk Julius Tabe is at the doorsteps of Professor Carlson Anyangwe. In the list of the appointees, he stands as the Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Is he a square peg in a square hole? The following lines may tell us if he deserved the call to service.

Carlson Anyangwe was born in the hinterlands of the Northern zones of Ambazonia to a Christian family. Like many other young people of his time, Carlson was not destined for bigger things. Born at the peak of colonialism in Africa in general, Carlson like most of his peers saw education as a waste of time. He joint his fellow boys to heard cattle in the village, tap mbuh from his father’s bush with the hope of becoming one of the greatest tappers of his generation.

Faith has it that the missionaries penetrated into their village and he was one of the stubborn boys that were chosen to try the white man’s education. Remember in those days most parents decided to send stubborn children to school as a means of preventing their headiness in their farms or around the hard working ones. Young Carlson was quickly identified as a brave and intelligent young man who could succeed in life. After obtaining his FSLC, he got admissions to the famous CPC Bali at the time. In this institution, Carlson was so brilliant that he made it so well in the then London GCE and moved on to CCAST Bambili for his high school studies where he took up History and English Literature as his main subjects. From here, he sorted and got admissions into the then University of Yaounde with the option to study Law.

It is no secret that at the university, Anyangwe had developed into a political animal that started seeing the marginalization of Anglophone students in that institution. Together with other prominent Anglophone students, they started the call to redress some of the problems that they were facing as Anglophones. One of such moves was the writing of an eight-page letter to Anglophone parents decrying the servitude and torture they were undergoing in that university.

In 1990, the wind of change was blowing all over Africa with the collapse of the Berlin wall. Cameroon was not spared by this wind as the call for democracy was rife in every lips of the country. Anyangwe quickly found his feet and became one of the founding fathers of the Social Democratic Front (SDF). He was at the launching in Bamenda on the 26 of May 1990 when six of his party comrades succumbed to the bullets of the regime. He was quickly made a household name in the newly formed party and part of the campaigning team of John Fru Ndi in the 1992 presidential elections.

His political prowess did not end there. He as many others had joined the SDF with the hopes of freeing Southern Cameroons as advised by the American government via their embassy in Yaounde. Seeing that things were not going the way he had wanted, Anyangwe had to go abroad and stayed out of the activities of the party he took part in its formation. He has written exclusively on the Southern Cameroons case and given many lectures around the world on this topic.

Professional life

Professor Carlson Anyangwe read law in Cameroon, France and Britain. He holds the BA-Law and the LLB from University of Yaounde, a Postgraduate Diploma in Comparative Law from the University of Strasbourg in France, and the LLM and PhD from the University of London, England. As Professor of Law and Research, he teaches international law, criminal law and procedure, human rights law. He is one of Africa’s best brains in these areas of law and a researcher in those niche areas. He has an impressive number of published books and referred journal articles to his credit. He is moreover a confirmed law teacher and researcher of long, wide and varied experience spanning some three decades.

He has taught in Universities in Cameroon, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zambia where he served as Associate Dean and Acting Dean of the School of Law, and has done consultancy and human rights education work in Seychelles, Lesotho, Mauritius, Mongolia, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Egypt and Zimbabwe. He was Director of the School of Law and Research Champion, Walter Sisulu University, Republic of South Africa. He is a member of the African Commission’s Working Group of Experts on the Death Penalty in Africa, ‘ambassador’ of the State of Arkansas, honorary citizen of Monticello, and USIA International Visitor Fellow. Professor Anyagwe has supervised over 50 PhD candidates and more than a hundred Masters. Professor Anyangwe was one of the Architects of the All Anglophone Conference (AAC I and II) in Buea and Bamenda.

And above all he has just been appointed the Secretary of State for Foreign affairs of his dream country, the Federal Republic of Ambazonia

By Belmondo Atanga