Guns (Fire Arms) from Men at Home to Boys in the Bush in the Bamenda Grass Field: A Diagnosis of the Ongoing Armed Conflict Experience

Abstract

The protracted claim of marginalization, subjugation, neglect, and disregard by individuals and political groups in the part of the Republic of Cameroon that was colonized by Britain known as Anglophone Cameroon metamorphosed into an armed rebellion in 2017. This came as a result of confused talks /dialogue sessions between the Cameroon government and the Anglophones Teachers/Lawyers trade Unions in Bamenda. While the Cameroon government played for time to implement the resolutions of the talks, the self-appointed leaders of the Anglophone communities who had been beating the drums of War on all social media platforms from their safe hoods in the Diaspora lost their patience and ordered an all recruitment of boys and girls into an army which went by different appellations. Without adequate preparations for War either in the dimension of training, money, or weaponry, so many people in Anglophone Cameroon were both persuaded and brainwashed to abandon their daily chores to join the ranks of the make-shift fighting scouts; amba militia that went by a myriad of appellations. The recruits profited from the chaos and disorder to seize guns that formed the nucleus of nobility, honour, and wealth of the people of the grass fields and took these arms of honour to their camps mostly in the bushes to carry out the War assignments. The prime target of the make shift militia as heralded by this deeply aggrieved faction of the English-speaking Cameroon was to secure a quick victory over the Cameroon army and agencies thereby, liberating Anglophone Cameroon from what they called colonization, domination, marginalization or, or imperialism. Guns at home in the Grass fields before 2017 were kept by dignified individuals mainly titled and wealthy men. The gun culture that reigned then was regulated both by a sort of intrinsic morale that formed a pattern of prestige and social effervescence beyond common compare but their mass seizure by these hurriedly formed boys under the guise of rage and furry became a source of worry and danger to the social, political and material wellbeing of the people within this niche. This paper has exploited primary and secondary sources to underscore the trouble encountered by this unfortunate guns shift from the houses to the bushes in the Bamenda grass fields. It argues that the guns at home and with dignified men served purposes that were for the most part peaceful and defensive but those in the bushes simply inaugurated an age of violence and wanton destruction uncommon to the grass fielders in all its historical time scale.