The second day in the month of April in the year of our Lord 1993 is a Saturday. As my ageing “Lada” is sputtering along the Douala-Tiko highway, a feeling of excitement tinged with some apprehension suddenly descends on me and buries its claws in my mind. Rumours had, in fact, been making the rounds of the anglophone community in Douala that the “Lion-Man” alias “Man-Lion” was determined to disrupt the first ever “All Anglophone Conference” billed for the historic Southern Cameroonian capital of Buea, and arrest those attending.
That must be why I seem to see the red-berets of the “Lion’s” monsters lurking in every corner of the road. To compound this feeling of vulnerability, a thick fog has gripped the land and is crawling with sinister intensity through the CDC rubber and banana plantations.
It is only when I emerge in Tiko that the weather suddenly becomes friendlier. Ahead, Fako stands out in all its splendour, bare from top to bottom, draped only in the golden colours of a rising sun. There, it stands, imposingly majestic, its head, proud and erect, snugly lodged in the underbelly of a dome-shaped sky, infinitely blue in colour.
The serpent of fear that has been gnawing at my guts suddenly vanishes as the cold, refreshingly friendly air of Buea starts to caress my cheeks.
***
What you are about to read is the immortalisation of a few reflections of mine on that first “All Anglophone Conference” which I reproduce with gratitude to The Campost and The Messenger.
MKJ
Tav, wondering if there can be a detailed account on this matter that touches AAc1 and 2.
Posted by: TUME | January 05, 2013 at 07:57 AM