Ambazonia

The name Ambazonia or Ambazania refers to two separate entities. One pertains to an advocacy group struggling for the total restoration of the statehood of the former British League of Nations Mandate of Southern Cameroons. It is also used to refer to the Southern Cameroons by organisations that struggle for the dissolution of the 1961 union of the Southern Cameroons with Cameroun.

The term "Ambazonia" is derived from the word Ambas Bay, the bay at the mouth of the Mungo river, considered the natural boundary between the Republic of Cameroon and Southern Cameroons. The name was coined by a group of citizens of the former UN Trust Territory of Southern Cameroons, led by Barrister Gorji Dinka, an ancestral leader of the Widikum people. They accused the President of Cameroon, Ahidjo, of having unilaterally withdrawn the Republic of Cameroon from the Union that was created in 1961 and later modified by Ahmadou Ahidjo in 1972. By Biya's decree No 001 of 4 February, 1984, he declared the name of the country as The Republic of Cameroon, which was the name it acquired at Independence in 1960 before joining with Southern Cameroons in 1961.

The Republic of Ambazonia was declared by a group of English-speaking Cameroonians led by Fon Gorji Dinka, a renowned lawyer and natural leader of the Widikum people of the Middle belt of British West Cameroon in 1984. This declaration was made after the second francophone President Of Cameroon had unilaterally changed the name of the Country from United Republic of Cameroon to the Republic of Cameroon, a name French-speaking Cameroon acquired at independence on January 1, 1960, before joining with Southern Cameroons on October 1961. The learned lawyer immediately went to work with his colleagues, including the venerable Professor Bernard Nsokika Fonlon, and came out with a document called the New Social Order in which they enunciated that by reverting to the name French Cameroon had at independence, Mr Biya, the President, had ' seceded from the Union and so the English-speaking part of Cameroon had the right to revert to its independence before 1961 and the new state was named Ambazonia. (See interviews with Gorji Dinka). This declaration of independence has not been recognised by other countries or by the United Nations (UN). The area remains under the control of the Republic of Cameroon. Southern Cameroonians in exile formed the Ambazonia Liberation Party (ALIP) in July 2004.

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