Rev. /Dr. Nyansako-Ni-Nku:“Violence Is Not An Option Of The Wise”

 Former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon.

What is your appraisal of the socio-political crisis that has been rocking the North West and South West Regions for over a year now?

I will like us to first of all understand that this crisis didn’t begin yesterday. It is something we have lived with for long. It is one of the historical errors that the nation has been bearing without addressing fully. So, it has reached a stage now like a wound that has gone deep and it takes long to clean it up and heal. I think the government should place itself in a position of leading or setting an agenda on what we should do and how we should do it rather than reacting to the enemies of the State. The people who seem to be very vocal and acting on the field are not the patriots of this country. They are people who probably, we would want to say, don’t have our best interest at heart. We have heard a lot about dialogue but we have seen very little about it.

By your reading, what really is the problem?

What the people are asking for, if my reading of the situation is right, is that there has been endemic injustice against Anglophones. What we are asking is simple. To identify what those areas of injustice are and to address them and to ensure that peace stands. These things have happened in many countries. South Africa is still struggling with the Apartheid, the US is still struggling with the racial problem. So, it is not something that we should kill ourselves for. We should rather show a sense of leadership on how to address it. It is a historical problem and these people in power did not create the problem, they met it. So, they should jump on it and solve it because they are the ones in power. They have a right to dialogue, protect the nation and our national unity.

What is your take on how security forces have been handling the issue?

I think they are trying. They have an enormous task first of all to find out who troublemakers are. In the process, some wrong people have probably been punished but they are trying. Sometimes I think the excesses are a little bit too much. I have talked with people who lost loved ones in the trouble, people who ought not to die. I am also saying that the young people should realise that they can let their voices be heard without going into extremism of burning properties. It is our national heritage.

Do you think the church has been doing enough to calm down flaring tempers?

The most the church can do is to provide moral support and to see that justice is upheld. The church has done so by making its pronouncements about what is going on, what they think can be done. The church hasn’t got the means to act in a manner that is more than pronouncements. The churches shut down schools not in obedience to the call of the extremists. This was a means of protecting their property and the lives of the children. Who were under attack. There is a friend of mine who has a well-known private school here. After sometimes, we convinced her in church to reopen the school and that school was attacked. If they could attack that private school, they could do so to any other. I have heard the Moderator of the PCC say over and over that we should open our schools now. And that if the extremists burn our schools, we will teach under trees. 

A school of thought holds that the church rather than using the pulpits to preach peace appears to be cautioning disorder through the different outings. What is your take on this?

I think that it would be unfair and I wonder if that is an honest assessment. We should condemn violence because by my own estimation, violence has never resolved any problem anywhere in the world. Even after World Wars I and II, conflicts were resolved only when guns fell silent and people sat round the table. So, I am saying that violence is not an option of the wise. The way out is an organised, proper and well-staged dialogue. From the pulpits, ...