Bamenda Grassland Elites in the Race for Titles within the Multiparty Liberal Space in Cameroon

Abstract

The decade spanning from the 1990s inaugurated the Cameroon Political outfit with trans-mutations and opportunities under the New Deal Regime that commands special attention. Each of these new adjustments warranted alternative positioning by the emerging political elites who had been circumstantially trapped within the threshold of so many opportunities that this liberal landscape was brandishing. One interesting outgrowth in this changing atmosphere was the fact that; traditional titles plus modern credentials turned out to be one of the key elements required for positioning and lobbying by these opportunistic elites. This article combines evidence combed from primary and secondary sources to answer key questions patterning to the tussle for titles by grassland elites in the guise of positioning themselves in the hub of opportunities that the somewhat liberal phase of the Cameroon New Deal era offered as from the 1990s. It particularly seeks to situate (a) The special climate that engineered these paradigmatic shifts by those presumed to be sufficiently savvy of tradition (b) the different categories of titles these elites raced for as well the reasons behind such a mad rush (c) the methods plus raison d’être of title conferment as well as (d) the impact of such deals in political positioning. Away from the positions/opportunities that were gained and lost by elites of this niche in this title drama, the paper proffer that the race to own titles and the politics around it played a big role in washing away the authority /command that titled men carried before this time not only within the grasslands but largely everywhere in Cameroon where such gimmicks became part of the game for gaining space in the realm of power. In all, it submits that this game rather polarized the elites against each other since each title holders proofed to be so ready to play or perform any mean deal so as to get appointed or other forms of compensations that mattered in the realm of opportunities. It opines therefore that such moves disgracefully eclipsed other genuine methods of getting the right people into the power trail on the basis of merit thereby, ruining the political space with wrong people from hence and any time after.