The Making of the Political Architecture of Modern Cameroon
Emmanuel Konde, Ph.D.

Abstract
This paper is an interpretive analysis of the political events of the late-1950s in British Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun that shaped the contours of political life in post-independence and post-reunification Cameroon from 1961 to1972. These events include the anlu of 1958 in the Bamenda Grasfields; the electoral victory of John NguFoncha that toppled the premiership of Emmanuel Mbela Lifaffe Endeley in 1959; the French orchestrated replacement of Prime Minister André-Marie Mbida with Ahmadou Ahidjo in1958, and the assassination of Ruben Um Nyobe that same year. These momentous events apparently adversely impacted and altered the trajectory of Cameroon politics, and provided both Ahidjo and Foncha the leverage to forge a new state apparatus according to their whims. Whereas in Francophone Cameroon the assassination of Um Nyobe created a vacuum of credible opposition and offered Ahidjo the latitude to consolidate his power, in Anglophone Cameroon the lack of cooperation and dissension within the ranks of her politicians were ably exploited by Foncha to single-handedly negotiate with Ahidjo, without the necessary checks and balances from the opposition CPNC party, in crafting the political architecture1 of modern Cameroon.. Although the paper posits Ahidjo as the major architect of the modern Cameroon state, other political actors who either enabled or sought to obstruct his political designs were Foncha, Augustine NgomJua, and Solomon TandengMuna. The methodology adopted for this study combines diachronic and synchronic analysis in its narration.

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