Ceded at Dawn: The Aborted Decolonization of the UN Trust Territory of British Southern Cameroons

Ceded at Dawn identifies and examines decolonization as the principal source of the smoldering tension that persisted between the two former United Nations Trust Territories in Cameroon which finally exploded into an armed conflict in 2017. French Cameroon (now the Republic of Cameroon) was decolonized while the decolonization of British Cameroons was abandoned unfinished. The international experiment on independence by joining was an exceptional route selected for the decolonization of British Southern Cameroons and was defended with the untenable arguments that British Southern Cameroons was too small and too poor to be granted sovereign independence. Both British Southern Cameroons and French Cameroon rejected independence by joining - the latter registering her objection in a “No” vote at the General Assembly meeting in April 1961. In British Southern Cameroons on the other hand, the suppression of bilateral agreement on confederation of states of equal status, the nullification of their self-governing status and worst of all the wrongful transfer of that self-governing state to the Republic of Cameroon on no known terms became a complete recipe for a disaster awaiting outburst and eruption. Ceded at Dawn documents and methodically analyzes these developments using archival and recently declassified British colonial sources. Historians, diplomats, political scientists, scholars of the UN system and international law as well experts on decolonization will find this volume it very illuminating.

Augustine Ndangam studied English Language and Literature at the Federal University of Cameroon and at the School of English of the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. Between 1979 and 1995, he worked as a high school administrator in Wum, Kumbo and Bamenda respectively where he served as principal of schools. He taught part time at the Higher Teacher's College (ENS) Bambili and later at the Bamenda University of Science and Technology (BUST). His instructional books Evans Cameroon Primary English with British co-author David Weir were a leading English language text book for children in primary schools in Cameroon for close to 30 years. He is an active community leader who has consistently championed and supported initiatives aimed at advancing the Anglophone cause in Cameroon. This includes being part of the organizers of the All Anglophone Conferences (AACI and AAC2) in Buea and Bamenda. He has served as Vice President of Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) for many years, and is currently chair of the Southern Cameroons People's Organization (SCAPO) which he co-founded with other Southern Cameroonians and thereafter initiated a series law suits and litigations in Nigeria and at the African Commission on Human and People's Rights in Banjul on the right of Self-determination for former British Southern Cameroons. In February 2017, he joined other leaders of the struggle in a unified platform to advance the course of the Southern Cameroons struggle under a unified umbrella called SCACUF. He led several delegations to the Whitehall in London and to Washington DC to widen international understanding on the Southern Cameroons annexation and the 2017 invasion and genocide.