::: What is in a Name ? :::

In the build up to the 31^st edition of the African cup of Nations currently going on in Gabon, many top players of the “Indomitable Lions” of Cameroon, including Choupo-Moting and Joel Matip have turned their backs on the shirt and flag of La Republique du Cameroun. Consequently, Clinton Njie, as one of the most talented and experienced heads in the group, was expected to be the standard bearer of the team.

Four games into the football festival, it could be easy to tell from his body language and his lacklustre performances that Njie doesn’t quite feel like he belongs in that team. And he is right! He has shown that clearly when after a game, he went his own way from all the other members of the team and refused to shake the hands of the roving ambassador of La Republique du Cameroun, a.k.a Roger Milla.

Kudos Njie, you have done well! You can´t and shouldn’t for whatever reason on earth, fight for a shirt and a flag that represents the people who are:

-        Raping your sisters and mothers in the land of your birth and ancestors (the Southern Cameroons)

-        Killing your brothers and fathers and denying your people their basic rights as humans

-        Trying to francophonize your name, to assimilate you and to force a foreign identity on you

Heck! Njie, how can we not notice how these people are trying ever so hard to francophonize your name? By insisting on writing your name as “N´jié”, even though you, your parents and ancestors say it is Njie, they are therewith; disrespecting your identity, treating your identity like sh!t so that they can make you want to be them and feel you are less worthy than what you really are.

How could they expect you to represent them with a straight face, when they can’t even say your name and respect your identity? They argue that, they write your name as “N´jié” instead of Njie to make it easier for them to pronounce. So I put it to them; why do they think we Anglophones always write: Bi M´vondo and not “Be Vondo”; Bill Tchato, and not “Bill Chato” or Jacques Songo´o, and not Jack Songo? And, no, it is not because we are “Anglofous” but because we respect people´s identity. Therefore, Njie, if they don’t respect yours, you have no business defending their shirt and flag. And, while we are at it, why don’t they write the name of the former American president as “Georges Busch”, instead of George Bush? Proof they can respect people and identities they feel they should respect and you, Njie, do not fall in that category because they feel, as they have been teaching their children in school, that you and your people were captured and annexed in 1961.

Shakespeare once said: “What is in a name? Give a rose another name and it shall smell as sweet”. That is universally true, except that, in La Republique du Cameroun:

-          Njie can only be a worthy Indomitable Lion if his name is “N´jié”

-          Achalle (may his gentle Southern Cameroonian soul R.I.P) could only be the best singer if his name was “Achalley”

-          Kamerun can only be a worthy fatherland if it is “La Republique du Cameroun”

Njie, it has to do with respect, son. They don’t respect you; they don’t respect your people. They only want to assimilate you so they can treat you like dirt, worse than the second class citizen treatment they have been giving your grandparents, your parents and now you, over the past 55 years.

Yes Njie, you are right not to feel a part of that bunch. You, Tambe and Fai should pack your bags, spit on that shirt, spit on that flag and come back home. You are true sons of our soil.

No internet? No problem! Aluta Continua!!

Happy Ghost Towns, all proud citizens of the Southern Cameroons

... Emile Tabu Ojong ...