Academic activities at primary, secondary and high school including universities in the North West and South West regions will all today Monday be paralyzed following a strike embarked on by the Anglophone teachers.

The teachers had issued a series of warning notices to the government on the need to work a way out to respect the bilingual nature of the country that was put in place by the founding fathers or face an industrial action.Reports from all academic establishments in the South West and North West revealed that teachers will be absent at their duty posts today.

The leaders of the strike action reportedly rejected a mission sent by President Biya and headed by Minister Fame Ndongo. Concerns have also been expressed by the Teachers Association of Cameroon (TAC) of some divisional delegates working to sabotage the strike action.

Below is a statement issued by the leadership of TAC

We, the leaders of the confederation of Anglophone Teacher Trade Unions and Initiators of the strike of 21/11/2016, have been reliably informed that some persons are plotting to sow seeds of confusion and havoc on that Monday. We are reliably told that some government officials with diabolical designs have called on persons representing hitherto sacred and sacrosanct traditional institutions and bastions to come out massively in a protest march against our strike tomorrow, 21/11/2016. We raise our voices to decry such further desecration of these already devalued traditional leaders. We remind them that nobody, no matter how strong nor no-nonsense, has ever won nor will ever win a battle against the people.

We are also getting calls and messages from teachers in the nooks and crannies of the Anglophone regions that some regional, divisional and school administrators, with an outlandish urge to safeguard their petty positions of authority are summoning snap meetings and threatening teachers! We take the patience to remind these enemies of the Anglophone commonwealth and wreckers of those lofty dreams and aspirations we are nurturing for our beloved fatherland that we are taking note and will start naming and shaming them – proclaiming them anathema–now and for posterity.

We maintain that the strike that we have called is a sit-in, not street demonstrations. Consequently, we take the opportunity to reiterate that our will not change its outlook. Let us not give the massed up troops the excuse to descend on helpless and hapless citizens, thus causing pain as is always the wont. Also, given the callously shameful tragedy of betrayal that was orchestrated by callous and shameless “Anglophone brothers” in Yaounde last Friday, teachers and their supporters, more than ever, have reason to have uploaded their mourning mood by Monday morning. Let us really mourn for this alienation forced on us in the only country we have as our beloved fatherland, Cameroon!

Our struggle, which advocates unity and decries vain efforts at uniformity, is clearly and definitely not for petty considerations like increased pay, but for an enhanced educational system, which will make the nation’s children at the end of their educational programmes more worthy and consequently render the nation stronger and more unified than ever before. Thus our motivating forces – the justice that we seek, the truth that we declare, the powerful national potential that we articulate… are really powerful. These powerful forces will undoubtedly rise against ALL traitors of the cause, in the manner of the biblical plagues.

Yes, we are convinced without an iota of doubt that our cause is God’s cause. And we declare, confident in the truism that the voice of the people is the voice of God, that He already stands stoutly for this cause and He will destroy all His enemies who also turn out to be enemies of our nation, Cameroon.

TAC NATIONAL President

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Eyong Paolo, Sama Ernest